BJP Lok Sabha member from New Delhi, Meenakshi Lekhi has proposed to the NDMC to rename Race Course Road, on which the Prime Minister’s official residence is located, as Ekatma Marg, based on the phil
BJP Lok Sabha member from New Delhi, Meenakshi Lekhi has proposed to the NDMC to rename Race Course Road, on which the Prime Minister’s official residence is located, as Ekatma Marg, based on the philosophy of her party’s ideologue, Deendayal Upadhyay. The NDMC is likely to take a decision at its first Council meeting on Wednesday.
Upadhyay is remembered by his followers for his concept of antyodaya (serving the last man in the queue) and ekatma (integral humanism). Prime Minister Narendra Modi will kick off Upadhyay’s 100th birth anniversary celebrations on September 25.
An agenda of the Council meeting of the NDMC read, “The nation is celebrating the birth centenary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay this year. To take the philosophy of ekatma to the people at large, and as the name of the road, viz, ‘Race Course Road’, on which the residence of the Prime Minister of India is situated, does not match Indian culture, Ms Lekhi, MP and a member of the NDMC, has requested to rename Race Course Road under the NDMC area as Ekatma Marg so that this name would remind every Prime Minister about the last person in society throughout his or her life.”
Ms Lekhi also cited in her proposal, submitted to the civic body on September 9, past instances of renaming of roads which fell under the NDMC. Race Course Road was named after the Delhi race course, which was a part of the Delhi Race Club, established in 1940.
Top BJP leaders have often lamented that Upadhyay, whose death during a train journey in 1968 is shrouded in mystery, did not get the due recognition among the political stalwarts of modern India. In August last year, Aurangzeb Road in Lutyens’ Delhi had been renamed as Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Road in honour of the late President. NDMC had taken the decision after East Delhi BJP MP Maheish Girri proposed the move to ‘correct the mistakes made in our history’.
AAP MLA Surinder Singh, also an NDMC member, meanwhile, said that he would oppose the move to rename Race Course Road as Ekatma Marg and demanded that it be rechristened after a martyr. “Race Course Road should be renamed after any soldier. I propose that it should be renamed after 1965 war hero Flt Lt Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon, who sacrificed his life for the nation. Renaming of a road should not reflect the ideology of the RSS,” added Mr Singh.
