Another decision of the previous Mayawati regime would be overturned soon with the Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Nagar district getting its original name of Amethi. The restoration of the district’s name is just one of the many decisions of the Mayawati government that the Akhilesh Yadav government is out to reverse.
Sources say UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has already given the go-ahead for the decision and now it only remains to be ratified by the cabinet. The restoration of the old name of the Gandhi family bastion would also serve as another signal of the growing bonhomie between the Centre and the state, as also between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party. Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is the present Amethi MP while the seat has been represented by his parents.
The decision, sources say, is being taken after the initiative taken by three SP MLAs from the district. The legislators recently met Akhilesh and demanded that the original name be restored. The MLAs reasoned that Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj had no link with the state and was hardly known to the people of UP.
The Mayawati government had created the new district with the mouthful of a name in April 2010 as the 72nd district of UP after carving out Amethi, Gauriganj and Musafirkhana tehsils from Sultanpur, and Salon and Tiloi from Rae Bareli.