Mughalsarai station renamed as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Jn, Kejriwal takes a dig

Lucknow: One of India’s oldest railway stations, the Mughalsarai station of Uttar Pradesh has officially been renamed as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Junction on Monday. The Centre last year approved the Uttar Pradesh government’s request to rename the station, despite protests raised in parliament by various opposition parties.

The proposal was given by the Yogi Adityanath government in 2017, in a bid to revive the legacy of Upadhyay, who was found dead at this junction in 1968.

The Mughalsarai junction, one of country’s busiest railway stations, was set up by the British in the 1800s as a key station linking New Delhi to Kolkata.

Meanwhile, taking a dig at the BJP, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi, “If you vote for BJP, then names of cities and stations will change. If you vote for AAP, then the future of your children will change."

The AAP chief posted the message while retweeting his deputy Manish Sisodia’s tweet.

Tweeting in Hindi, Sisodia said, “Instead of changing the name of the city, if they would have changed the condition of government schools and colleges then it would have been beneficial for the coming generation. But they won’t… If children get education then they won’t fall into their trap.”

Senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan also took a jibe at the Yogi Adityanath government. "Who says that the Yogi government isn't working? Amidst all the heavy work done to provide oxygen to children at Gorakhpur Hospital, beating up people for Cows, & battering women thru Romeo squads, Yogi still got time to change the name of Mughalsarai Jn to Pandit Deendayal Jn!," Bhushan tweeted.

The junction, set up in 1862 when the East India Company linked Howrah to Delhi by rail, is located on the main Howrah-Delhi Grand Chord line.

Deen Dayal Upadhyay's body was found under mysterious circumstances on a platform of Mughalsarai in 1968.