PM Modi Says Chandigarh Airport to be Renamed After Bhagat Singh

Chandigarh airport will be named after freedom fighter Bhagat Singh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his monthly radio address "Mann Ki Baat" today.

PM Modi Says Chandigarh Airport will be Renamed

The move is being seen as a one-sided move of the BJP against the Aam Aadmi Party over the legacy of the martyr legend.

PM Modi said that as a tribute to the great freedom fighter, it has been decided that the Chandigarh airport will now be named after Shaheed Bhagat Singh.

Welcoming the announcement, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said that the long standing demand of Punjabis has been fulfilled. "Our efforts have finally paid off.

On behalf of entire Punjab, we welcome the decision to name Chandigarh airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh ji," Mann said in a tweet in Punjabi. Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala also welcomed the announcement.

Mr Chautala said that the Punjab and Haryana governments had earlier agreed to name the Chandigarh International Airport after Bhagat Singh.

The decision came after a meeting of Bhagwant Mann and Dushyant Chautala on the issue last month.

Referring to their meeting, Mann said that the Punjab government has also sent a letter to the Union Civil Aviation Ministry, stating that Bhagat Singh's birth anniversary falls on September 28 and it would be good if the airport was named after the great freedom fighter. be named after. before this.

Mann said, "I am happy that our efforts paid off and the Prime Minister announced this in his Mann Ki Baat programme." The Chief Minister of Punjab began his term with great fanfare with a symbolic tribute to the iconic freedom fighter.

AAP had organized the swearing-in ceremony of Bhagwant Mann at Khatkar Kalan, the native village of Bhagat Singh.

The venue was painted in the color of "Basanti (Yellow)". Comic-turned-politician Bhagwant Mann's trademark yellow turban filled the village Khatkar Kalan in response to his call for people to wear "Basanti turban and dupatta" for his oath.

The theme of the venue and decoration was yellow. Bhagat Singh wore a colored turban, which was a symbol of revolution.

Just a few days into his office, Bhagwant Mann had announced that 23 March, the day of martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, would be declared a public holiday every year.

The AAP has carefully strategized to lay claim to the legacy of Bhagat Singh,

Popular among the youth and rural North India.

This is also not the first time that the Union Territory's airport has been proposed to be named after Bhagat Singh.

The Punjab government in 2017 had demanded that the airport be named "Shaheed-e-Azam Sardar Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport, Mohali".

The BJP-led Haryana Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution on this in April 2016. The state government had said that it did not mind the change of name, but "Mohali" should be dropped from the name.

This move by the BJP state government was seen as a game of power against the then ruling Congress in erstwhile Punjab.

The Punjab government had put up signage of the Mohali airport after the terminal building of the airport in Punjab's Mohali city collapsed, angering the Haryana government.

The next year, in 2017, there was an uproar in the Rajya Sabha as the opposition alleged that the BJP government in Haryana did not want to name it, after freedom fighter Bhagat Singh.

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CPM MLA Ritabrata Banerjee had then said that there was a dispute over the naming of Chandigarh airport. He said, "The Punjab government had agreed that the airport would be named after Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, (but) the Haryana government, the Chief Minister of Haryana said 'no'.

His name would be Mangal Sen's name. was kept on.. Want to name the airport," he said. ,The Congress had included it alleging that the BJP wanted to name it, after the party's former Haryana chief minister Mangal Sen.

The BJP, however, denied the allegations and said that he never said so. The Rs 485 crore airport project is a joint venture between the Airports Authority of India (AAI), and the governments of Punjab and Haryana.