The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government seeking its response to a petition challenging the decision to change the name of Allahabad city to Prayagraj, PTI reported.
The PIL, filed by Allahabad Heritage Society, was mentioned in front of a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant.
Allahabad was renamed Prayagraj in October 2018, after the state Cabinet passed a resolution. The matter had caused an uproar, with the Congress and the Samajwadi Party opposing the proposal.
The city was known as Prayag before 16th-century Mughal emperor Akbar built a fort near the confluence of the Ganga and the Yamuna and named it “Ilahabad”. His grandson Shah Jahan renamed the entire city “Allahabad”. An area near the confluence of the river continues to be known as Prayag.
“Prayag is where Lord Brahma performed the first yagna [ritual sacrifice],” Chief Minister Adityanath had told reporters at that time. “The confluence of two rivers is a ‘prayag’, and in Allahabad three rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati meet. Hence, it is the king of ‘prayags’. That is why it is ‘Prayagraj’.”
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Prayagraj is now the official name, but Allahabad will live on in the way the city imagines itself
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