BANGALORE: Karnataka got a festival gift on Friday when the Centre approved renaming 12 cities, including Bangalore and Belgaum.
Bangalore's new name will be Bengaluru. Mangalore will be renamed
Mangaluru, and Mysore will become Mysuru. Bellary will be called Ballari
in official records, while Belgaum will be renamed Belagavi. Hubli will
become Hubballi. The new names of other cities are Tumakuru (Tumkur),
Vijapura (Bijapur), Chikkamagaluru (Chikmagalur), Kalaburagi (Gulbarga),
Hosapete (Hospet) and Shivamogga (Shimoga).
Union home ministry officials said the Karnataka government, Survey
of India, railway ministry, department of posts, ministry of science and
technology and Intelligence Bureau gave their clearance to the
proposal. Minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju, too, gave his
approval, which will now be followed by a final clearance from home
minister Rajnath Singh.
The NDA government waited for the Maharashtra assembly elections to
conclude because the decision to rename Belgaum could have cost theBJP
votes in villages bordering Karnataka.
Sources said chief minister Siddaramaiah spoke to Union home minister
Rajnath Singh on Thursday. Things moved fast afterSiddaramaiah, at a
meeting with Kannada litterateurs on October 10, announced that Belgaum
would be renamed Belagavi.
The issue of renaming Belgaum was triggered by Jnanpith awardee U R
Ananthamurthy at a meeting to discuss celebration of Karnataka's golden
jubilee in December 2005. He suggested to then chief minister N Dharam
Singh that Bangalore be renamed Bengaluru to mark the celebrations. Even
as Singh readily agreed, demands from other quarters cropped up — and
it became a list of 12 cities.
The state government mooted renaming the cities nine years ago, but
the UPA government put the issue on the back burner. The proposal got
stuck as the Maharashtra government filed a counter appeal before the
Centre stating that the proposal to rename Belgaum had a motive to hurt
the sentiments of Marathi-speaking people.
The UPA-I government cleared the names with the rider that Belgaum be
dropped from the list as it did not want to antagonize Maharashtra over
the Mahajan Commission report. The issue went into cold storage as
successive governments did not pursue the matter.
Source :The Times of India
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