Controversial United States President Donald Trump has found unlikely support in a village facing power and water supply scarcity in Haryana, AFP reported. The Marora village council symbolically renamed itself to “Trump village” on Friday, a day before as Prime Minister Narendra Modi set off on his three-nation tour to Portugal, the US and The Netherlands.

The renaming is an initiative to gain traction for Sulabh international’s campaign to end open-defecation in the village as well as an attempt to boost bilateral ties, The Times of India reported. Sulabh founder Bindeshwar Pathak said he thought of the idea during his recent visit to the United States. “I was speaking there and I thought why not in the name of Trump?” Pathak told AFP. Only 20 of the 165 houses have toilets, the newspaper reported. The village has one primary school, no concrete roads.

Advertisement

Very few people in the Muslim-majority village had heard of Trump before the campaign. “We are happy the new name will bring development to our village,” village sarpanch Shaukat Ali told The Times of India. “Sulabh has promised to construct a toilet in each house, an approach road to the school, a community centre and free education for children of widows.”

“As long as the name brings development to the village, we have no objection,” former sarpanch Jabbar Khan told TOI when asked about the president’s perceived anti-Muslim stance.

While the name change is not government-approved, villager Aziz Ahmed told the news agency that he was confident the popularity of the new name would overshadow its predecessor. “They will only call it Trump Village,” he told AFP. “Everyone in the village is very happy about it.”

The village hosted a ceremony with children holding placards vowing that Trump village would soon be clean and have sanitation facilties.