Firozabad takes a cue from Aligarh, votes to change name to ‘Chandranagar’

Weeks ago, the Aligarh municipal corporation voted to rename the city as Harigarh.

R5epresentational image | Flickr

Firozabad: Barely weeks after Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh Municipal Corporation passed a resolution for changing the city’s name to Harigarh, another city in the Agra region is seeking to shed its Islamic identity.

According to Firozabad Municipal Commissioner Ghanshyam Meena, the civic body’s working committee Friday passed a resolution to change the city’s name to Chandranagar.

The Firozabad Zila Panchayat had already passed a similar resolution two years ago. The proposal for formally changing the name of the city will now be sent to the Uttar Pradesh government.

Notably, out of the 12 working committee members, only one councilor – Mohammed Rehan from the Samajwadi Party – showed some signs of protest when he said the corporation had more important issues pending before it.

Firozabad resident Sanjay Upadhyay told ThePrint that the city was known in ancient times as Chandrawarnagar.

He said the city lay in the cultural region of the sacred landscape “Braj” and was part of the Surasena Mahajanapada during the Vedic Age. Upadhyay said the name Firozabad was given during the regime of Mughal Emperor Akbar by Firoz Shah Mansab Dar in 1566 and “should have been changed a long time ago”.

(Edited by Tikli Basu)