Agra: The Uttar Pradesh metro has renamed the Jama Masjid station in Agra to Mankameshwar Mandir, barely months before the next general elections.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had instructed the Metro Rail Corporation (UPMRC) to change the name during an Agra visit last year.
The metro service on the priority corridor is expected to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi between 25 and 28 February.
Following orders received from the state, the signage of the Jama Masjid Metro Station has been switched to Mankameshwar Metro Station. This is the sixth metro station on the 13-station corridor — running from the Taj Mahal East Gate to the Sikandra monument.
UPMRC deputy general manager Panchanan Mishra told ThePrint that the Jama Masjid station was the third and final underground metro station on the priority corridor of six stations from the Taj Mahal to the Jama Masjid.
He said Adityanath visited Agra last year in July and conducted a survey of the work on the priority corridor. At that time, local residents demanded that the Jama Masjid station be renamed after the ancient Mankameshwar temple nearby.
Mishra said the state government has approved the name change and the signage has been modified accordingly.
The safety audit of the priority corridor will be conducted by the chief commissioner of railway safety, Janak Kumar Garg , Wednesday. The audit will last two days, after which the metro train service is expected to be ready for inauguration by Modi later this week or early next.
Mankameshwar administrator Mahant Harihar Puri said the temple had been established by Lord Shiva himself in the Dwapar Yug when he had come to Mathura for the darshan of Lord Krishna’s child form. Shiva had stayed at this site on the way to Mathura from Kailash and vowed to establish a Shivalinga if he was able to hold Krishna in his arms, the priest said.
Some Muslim leaders have decried the move as being electorally motivated. Bhartiya Muslim Vikas Parishad chairman Sami Aghai said Muslims were not objecting to the name change, but the intention behind it. He said by changing the name of the station, the government was merely trying to gain Hindu votes, while denigrating Muslims at the same time. The timing of this renaming also reeked of political opportunism, he said.
Muslim leader Mohammed Sharif Kala said the Lok Sabha elections would probably be announced in the first week of March and before that, the name of the station had been changed so that the BJP got more Hindu votes, even if at the cost of alienating the Muslim minority.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)