Top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka on Saturday welcomed the decision to rename major cities and towns as demanded by the Kannadigas, saying this will provide a moral boost to the people of the state.
Former Karnataka chief minister D V Sadananda Gowda, who is presently the Railways Minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Cabinet, said regional languages have got some force everywhere across the nation.
"Not from today, right from days, the regional languages, the regionality and the activities, the working style....So, India is one country where the unity in diversity is there. So, in Karnataka naming them as Kannada names gives them a moral boost for the people of Karnataka," he added.
Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Ananth Kumar, who also hails from the state, thanked the government for this move.
"From the last eight years, Karnataka was insisting that all the names of our cities should be pronounced in pure Kannada. There should not be anglicization of that pure Kannada word. For example: Bengaluru is Bengaluru, not Bangalore...,"
"The Britishers have gone, but unfortunately, British spellings remained. Therefore, we requested the union government, Rajnath Singhji did not waste anytime, within a day he has made all these names pure Kannada names as a gift to Kannadigas on Kannada Rajyotsava Day. Thanks to him, thanks to the Central Government led by Narendra Modi," he added.
The Centre had last month given its nod to the Karnataka Government's long-standing proposal to rename Bangalore and other cities and towns in the state as per Kannada nomenclature.
The proposal was mooted in 2006 by then Karnataka government to change the names of Bangalore and other cities and towns in the state.
Bangalore from now on will be known as Bengaluru, while the list for the other towns and cities whose names have been changed are Mangalore which will be known as Mangaluru, Bellary as Ballari, Bijapur as Vijapura, Chikmagalur as Chikkamagaluru, Gulbarga as Kalaburagi, Mysore as Mysure, Hospet as Hosapete, Shimoga as Shivamogga, Hubli as Hubballi and Tumkur as Tumakuru.
