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This is an archive article published on June 2, 2022

Rename Ahmednagar to Ahilyanagar says BJP, MNS wants it to be Ambikanagar

While a BJP leader wants Ahmednagar to be changed to Ahilyanagar, MNS student wing is in favour of Ambikanagar

BJP MLC Gopichand Padalkar. (File)BJP MLC Gopichand Padalkar. (File)

After the controversy over renaming Aurangabad to Sambhajinagar resurfaced in Maharashtra a few days back, the demand to change the name of Ahmednagar has also returned. While a BJP leader has demanded that Ahmednagar be changed to Ahilyanagar, the student wing of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is in favour of Ambikanagar.

In a letter to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, BJP leader Gopichand Padalkar on Thursday demanded that the name of Ahmednagar district be changed to Ahilyanagar in honour of ‘Punyashalok’ Ahilyabai Holkar.

“Ahilyadevi Holkar was born in Choundi village of Ahmednagar. Later, she went on to become the queen of Malwa. Since Ahilyadevi has an Ahmednagar connection, her name should be given to the district,” said Padalkar. Earlier, the Shiv Sena too had demanded that the name Ahmednagar be changed.

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Ahilyabai, who was born in 1725 in Choundi village, was from the Dhangar caste. She ruled the Malwa kingdom for over 30 years.

“We have organised a Human Chalisa recital contest in Ambikanagar. Some people celebrate May 28 as foundation day of Ahmednagar city. To oppose this, we distributed posters of our contest mentioning Ahmednagar as Ambikanagar. The real name of Ahmednagar district is Ambikanagar. We have decided to take this forward,” MNS student wing leader Sumit Verma said.

Ahmednagar was founded on May 28, 1490 by Ahmed Nizam Shah.

“Instead of demanding changes in names, it would be better if BJP and MNS leaders seek measures like reduction in rising fuel prices and rising inflation. They should urge the central government to take steps to resolve grievances of farmers and the poor. But this is not happening. Non-issues like change in name are being pushed,” NCP leader Amol Mitkari said.

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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