UP minister demands Yogi to rename Saharanpur medical college

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Minister of state for Ayush (independent charge) Dharam Singh Saini has demanded the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to change the name of the Sheikhul Hind Maulana Abdul Hasan Medical College Saharanpur and name it after some other iconic personality.

Earlier in March last year, the BJP MLA Brijesh Singh from Deoband in Saharanpur district had demanded to rename the town Deoband to Devvrind arguing that Deoband should be known for its historical association with Mahabharata and not the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband.

The MLA had said that Deoband is a sacred place for Hindus because of its historical association with Mahabharata. The historical association of Deoband with the Mahabharata needs to be highlighted and reinforced in public memory. It would be unfair if Deoband is known and talked about only as a place where Darul Uloom Deoband is located, the minister added.

Mr Saini, who was the cabinet minister during the Bahujan Samaj party government (2007-12) in a letter to the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on Friday said that the college was named after the Bahujan Samaj party founder Kanshi Ram. The previous Akhilesh Yadav led Samajwadi party government had changed the name after a prominent Deobandi Muslim cleric Maulana Abdul Hasan.

"Deep resentment prevails among the local people over the change in the name of the medical college. There is no justification for such a long name of the medical college and it was done by the Samajwadi Party government for the appeasement of a particular community'', said the minister in his letter to the chief minister. "It is highly inconvenient for the local people to spell the present name of the medical college'', he added.

Mr Saini said, "It has been the long-standing demand of the local people to change the name of the medical college and name it after some historic personality who has made a contribution in a social or political field".