Agartala: Amit Shah, the union home minister, responded strongly to claims that Mughal heritage was being erased and that the names of cities linked with them were being changed. He said that the BJP state governments had made "well-thought judgements" that were legal.
However, Shah asserted that the BJP does not wish to erase anyone's historical contributions.
Amit Shah spoke on renaming cities
The Home Minister made his comments in response to claims that the BJP is seeking to alter the history of the nation by renaming or preparing to rename cities with names connected to Mughal heritage in BJP-ruled states.
"The contribution of no one should be removed, neither do we want to remove them. But if someone wants to establish the tradition of the country then no one should have any objection," he said in an exclusive interview with ANI.
"We have not changed the name of even a single city which previously did not have an old name. Our governments have taken well-thought out decisions. Every government has its statutory rights," Shah added.
Notably, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Sangam Lal Gupta recently urged Amit Shah to change the name of Uttar Pradesh's capital city of Lucknow to "Lakhanpur or Laxmanpur".
Stating that the city was earlier named as Lakhanpur and Laxmanpur in the Treta Yug, the BJP MP claimed that Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula had renamed it Lucknow.
Shah spoke on writing re-imagined history
Shah, when asked about the allegations of writing a "re-imagined history" of Jammu and Kashmir, and erasing former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's contributions, said that Article 370 was included in the Constitution by the government of the first prime minister of the country and this had caused great loss to India.
"Article 370 was implemented because of Nehru ji. Since 1950 it had been on our agenda that it should not have been implemented. It caused a great loss to the country. Now with the manner in which development work is going on in Jammu and Kashmir, the way terrorists and terror attacks are decreasing this is being proved. You can see data. There are many changes which are happening in Jammu and Kashmir," he said.
