‘How many Muslims live here?’: UP’s Mustafabad should be renamed as Kabirdham, says CM Adityanath

​​Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath on Monday proposed that the Mustafabad village in Lakhimpur Kheri district be renamed Kabirdham.

Addressing an event at the Kabirdham ashram in the village, Adityanath said he had directed officials to prepare a formal proposal for the name change.

Explaining the rationale behind the decision, Adityanath said he was surprised to learn that the village was called Mustafabad despite having no Muslim population.

“When I came here, I asked about this village and was told its name was Mustafabad,” the chief minister said. “I asked if there were any Muslims living here, and I was told there were none. So I said, the name should change.”

The chief minister claimed the proposed renaming would restore the area’s cultural and historical identity linked to 15th-century devotional poet Kabir.

Adityanath accused previous governments of changing traditional names under the guise of secularism, calling it “hypocrisy”.

During Adityanath’s tenure, several places in Uttar Pradesh with names that had Islamic connotations have been renamed.

In 2018, Allahabad became Prayagraj and Faizabad district was renamed Ayodhya. The same year, Mughalsarai town and its railway junction were changed to Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Nagar and Junction, respectively.

In June, the chief minister announced that the Akbarpur bus stand in Ambedkar Nagar district would be renamed Shravan Dham...

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