Recently, Amit Shah, the union Home Minister, responded angrily to claims that Mughal heritage was being erased and that the names of places linked with them were being changed. He said that the BJP state governments had made “well-thought judgements” that were legal. The Home Minister made his comments in response to claims that the BJP is seeking to alter the history of the nation by renaming or preparing to rename cities with names connected to Mughal heritage in BJP-ruled states.

“The contribution of no one should be removed, neither do we want to remove them. But if someone wants to establish the tradition of the country then no one should have any objection,” he said in an exclusive interview with ANI. “We have not changed the name of even a single city which previously did not have an old name. Our governments have taken well-thought out decisions. Every government has its statutory rights,” he added. Notably, BSP MP Sangam Lal Gupta recently encouraged Amit Shah to rename Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, to “Lakhanpur or Laxmanpur.” The BJP MP asserted that Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula changed the city’s name to Lucknow from the Treta Yug names Lakhanpur and Laxmanpur.

When questioned about the claims that the former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s contributions to the history of Jammu and Kashmir have been erased and a “re-imagined history” has been written, Amit Shah responded that Article 370 was inserted into the Constitution by the administration of the nation’s first prime minister, which resulted in a significant loss for India.

“Article 370 was implemented because of Nehru ji. Since 1950 it had been on our agenda that it should not have been implemented. It caused a great loss to the country. Now with the manner in which development work is going on in Jammu and Kashmir, the way terrorists and terror attacks are decreasing, this is being proved. You can see data. There are many changes which are happening in Jammu and Kashmir,” he mentioned.