Bangalore, 11 other cities will get new names

BANGALORE: Karnataka got a festival gift on Friday when the Centre approved renaming 12 cities, including Bangalore and Belgaum.

Bangalore's new name will be Bengaluru. Mangalore will be renamed Mangaluru, and Mysore will become Mysuru. Bellary will be called Ballari in official records, while Belgaum will be renamed Belagavi. Hubli will become Hubballi. The new names of other cities are Tumakuru (Tumkur), Vijapura (Bijapur), Chikkamagaluru (Chikmagalur), Kalaburagi ( Gulbarga), Hosapete (Hospet) and Shivamogga (Shimoga).

Union home ministry officials said the Karnataka government, Survey of India, railway ministry, department of posts, ministry of science and technology and Intelligence Bureau gave their clearance to the proposal. Minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju, too, gave his approval, which will now be followed by a final clearance from home minister Rajnath Singh.

The NDA government waited for the Maharashtra assembly elections to conclude because the decision to rename Belgaum could have cost the BJP votes in villages bordering Karnataka.

Sources said chief minister Siddaramaiah spoke to Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday. Things moved fast after Siddaramaiah, at a meeting with Kannada litterateurs on October 10, announced that Belgaum would be renamed Belagavi.

The issue of renaming Belgaum was triggered by Jnanpith awardee U R Ananthamurthy at a meeting to discuss celebration of Karnataka's golden jubilee in December 2005. He suggested to then chief minister N Dharam Singh that Bangalore be renamed Bengaluru to mark the celebrations. Even as Singh readily agreed, demands from other quarters cropped up — and it became a list of 12 cities.

The state government mooted renaming the cities nine years ago, but the UPA government put the issue on the back burner. The proposal got stuck as the Maharashtra government filed a counter appeal before the Centre stating that the proposal to rename Belgaum had a motive to hurt the sentiments of Marathi-speaking people.

The UPA-I government cleared the names with the rider that Belgaum be dropped from the list as it did not want to antagonize Maharashtra over the Mahajan Commission report. The issue went into cold storage as successive governments did not pursue the matter.

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