Gurgaon renamed as ‘Gurugram’

The Millennium City of Gurgaon has been renamed as “Gurugram” by the BJP government in Haryana. The state government also renamed Mewat as Nuh.

An official communiqué by the Haryana government said the decision to rename Gurgaon as Gurugram was taken on the basis of representations at various levels. Saying Haryana was the “historic land of the Bhagwad Gita”, it said Gurgaon was known as a centre of learning since the times of Guru Dronacharya.

Gurgaon was where princes were given education, and so the people of the area had long been demanding that it be renamed as “Gurugram”.

It said Mewat was a geographical and cultural unit, not a town, and had spread beyond Haryana to the adjoining states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The headquarters of Mewat district is at Nuh town, and both local people and MLAs of the area wanted its name changed to Nuh.

Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar has approved the move to change the names of Gurgaon and Mewat. Haryana minister Anil Vij justified the change, comparing it to Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru. “In the past too,

Bombay was renamed Mumbai. Calcutta changed to Kolkata and Bangalore was renamed Bengaluru. The people of Haryana demanded we do the same,” he said.

Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar, however, said the BJP was only trying to “divert attention” and impose the “RSS agenda”.