New university in Aligarh to be named after freedom fighter, meets local BJP’s 7-year-old demand.
Seven years after the local BJP first asked to rename the AMU in honor of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, who donated the land to it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone on Tuesday for a new nearby university on behalf of the freedom fighter.
Modi is expected to arrive in the city to lay the foundation for Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh State University.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath visited the scene on Monday to oversee preparations for the event in Lodha town, about 40 km from Aligarh district headquarters.
Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who is camping here to oversee preparations, said that by establishing a state university in the name of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, the government is paying tribute to a man who has dedicated more than three decades of his life living in exile and fighting for the freedom of India.
Sharma said Mahendra Pratap was the chairman of the first Indian Provisional Government-in-Exile established in Kabul in 1915 with the help of various Afghan tribal leaders and heads of some governments, including that of Japan.
After returning to India, Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh played a key role in establishing different educational institutions, including a pioneering technical college in Mathura, Sharma said.
The establishment of a state university in his name in Lodha has been “widely welcomed by the inhabitants of this region as it would give a major boost to education in Aligarh and the surrounding districts”.
Sharma and that in the past four years, Yogi Adityanath’s government has established 11 new universities in the state.
Controversy erupted in the district in 2014 when local BJP leaders demanded that Aligarh Muslim University be renamed in his name because “the WBU was built on land donated by the late Raja”.
The problem first emerged as the City School’s 1.2 hectare land lease under AMU expired, and the late Raja’s legal heirs were reluctant to renew this lease. .
Last year, however, the problem was largely resolved when AMU authorities proposed to rename the school after the late Raja.
However, an AMU official told PTI on Monday: “There are some technical issues that still need to be worked out.”
The Prime Minister will also visit the Aligarh Node exhibit models of the Uttar Pradesh Defense Industrial Corridor and Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh State University.
The new university also aims to meet a long-standing demand for a state university in the region. All colleges in Aligarh Division and some neighboring districts will be affiliated with it, the chief minister said recently.
It is set up over a total area of over 92 acres at Lodha village and Musepur Kareem Jarouli village of Kol tehsil of Aligarh.
Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, who belonged to the district, was a former student of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and was also the chairman of India’s first provisional government-in-exile established on December 1, 1915 in Kabul.
Belonging to the royal family of Mursan, he had left his home and family in Aligarh in December 1914 and fled to Germany and remained in exile for around 33 years as he was wanted by British authorities.
He did not return in 1947 until after India gained independence. He was elected to Lok Sabha de Mathura in 1957, then defeating candidate Jan Sangh Atal Bihari Vajpayee, running as an independent.
“Raja Mahendra Pratap is one of the most remarkable figures of the Indian liberation movement and his commitment to the cause of a secular and democratic India makes him a giant of his time,” said Shan Mohammad, eminent academic and political historian.
“His commitment to the cause of secularism is comparable to that of Gandhi and Nehru. He fully deserves to be honored but his heritage must be fully respected,” he added.
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