A day after the New Delhi municipal council (NDMC) took the decision to change the name of the Aurangzeb road in Lutyen's delhi to A.P.J Abdul Kalam Road in honor of late President, The Citizens For Democracy, civil society group, has contested the decision saying it illegal arbitrary and against constitutional ethos.
A press statement by CFD says
The said decision is totally illegal, unjustified arbitrary and against our constitutional ethos. It appears to be guided by not reason and law but by narrow communal consideration.
It is well known that a section in BJP has long been agitating to change the name of Aurangzeb Road to some other names but it each time this proposal has failed. For example in October 2014 BJP had requested NDMC to rename the name of ‘Aurangzeb Road’ to ‘Guru Tegh Bahadur Singh Road’ but it was not allowed. On 17th December,2014 Shri Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary, Minister of State for Home Affairs, made a statement on behalf of the Home Ministry that Aurangzeb Road could not be renamed since the policy is not to rename any road named after a historical figure. Thus as per guidelines of the government, the name of the ‘Aurangzeb Road’ cannot be changed. The memory of Dr.Abdul Kalam could have been better served by building a scientific or educational institute under his name.We therefore demand that NDMC should immediately withdraw that decision and not to take any step for implementing the said decision.
Journalist and columnist Kuldip Nayar, Former Justice Rajindar Sachar and Lawyer N.D. Pancholi are the signatories.
East Delhi BJP MP, Maheish Girri had written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal that the road may be renamed. It was his request that was taken up by the NDMC.