Yogi Adityanath wants three UP airports to be renamed

Lucknow: After renaming Mugha-lsarai as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Nagar, the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has now sent a letter to the Centre seeking its approval to rename three airports in the state.

The airports to be renamed are Bareilly, Kanpur and Agra and all three are defence airports but the state government is in consultation with the Airports Authority of India to facilitate flyers under the regional connectivity scheme in these airports. UP civil aviation minister Nand Gopal Nandi said renaming of the three airports was long awaited.

“We have reached out to the Centre to get the airports renamed. A meeting with the Union ministry of civil aviation is expected soon,” he said. According to a proposal from the state civil aviation department, the Bareilly airport is to be named ‘Nath Nagri’, which is believed to be an ancient name of the city for its history of having ardent worshippers of Lord Shiva.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath belongs to the Nath sect and is the “mahant” (priest) of Gorakhnath temple. He had earlier renamed the civil terminal of IAF’s Gorakhpur airport as Maha Yogi Gorakhnath Airport, founder of ‘Nath Pant’ (monastic movement).

The proposal speaks about Bareilly in great detail. It says that the city is surrounded on all sides by as many as seven Lord Shiva temples —Alakhnath, Trivatin-ath, Marhinath, Dhopes-hwarnath, Vankhan-dinath, Tapeshwarnath and Pashupatinath.

Kanpur’s Chakeri airport is proposed to be named after freedom fighter Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi. The proposal says that Kanpur was earlier known as Kanha Pur and was founded by Sachendi King Hindu Singh. The Agra airport, on the other hand,  is proposed to be named after BJP ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya.