The name-changing fever has recently gripped the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha which on Thursday, asked the Uttar Pradesh government to rename Meerut to Godse Nagar, in honour of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse. The Hindu organisation also said that Ghaziabad and Hapur should be renamed Digvijay Nagar and Avaidyanath Nagar after two former head priests of the Gorakhnath Math.
While justifying the demand in a press release on the occasion of “Balidan Divas” on November 15, Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha National Vice President Ashok Sharma said that Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were the only “great figures” in history who did not protest the death sentence granted to them. Sharma also claimed that Godse and Apte were the favourite students of “Swatantryaveer” Savarkar.
Sharma also described Godse as a “great thinker, a nationalist and a great journalist”, the press release said.
The Hindu Mahasabha celebrates November 15 as “Balidan Divas” each year in honour of Godse and his accomplice Narayan Apte at its office in Meerut, to mark their hangings on November 15, 1949.
