Gurgaon gets a new name, Haryana govt renames it as ‘Gurugram’ citing records from Mahabharat

Haryana state government has renamed the district of Gurgaon as ‘Gurugram’. The decision was taken taken by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s cabinet on Tuesday. Along with Gurgaon, Mewat has also been renamed. The district of Mewat would officially be called as ‘Nuh’.

The state government has cited records from mythological Mahabharat to justify the name change. Over the period, many Hindutva leaders, including yoga guru Baba Ramdev have opined to change the name of Gurgaon to Gurugram.
Haryana’s cabinet minister Anil Vij has justified the change in name, comparing it to Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru. “In the past too, Bombay has been renamed to Mumbai. Calcutta changed to Kolkata and Bangalore was renamed to Bengaluru. People of Haryana demanded us to do the same. This decision reflects the wish of people,” Anil Vij said.
Gurgaon is one of the prominent cities of Haryana. Located barely 35 kilometres away from the Delhi-NCR, it is considered to be one of the ost influential places of North India. It has turned into a real estate hub over the past decade, as a large chunk of population of the heavily crowded national capital is gradually moving out. Gurgaon has also been the target of tier-II and tier-III city’s educated population who eye lucrative jobs offered by firms based in Gurgaon.

Although Haryana shares the capital Chandigarh with Punjab, the city of Gurgaon is considered to be the second capital of the state. Over the years, the successive government have projected Gurgaon as the target city for attracting global investors and domestic capitalists rather than the city of Chandigarh. The prominence of Gurgaon has given a new image to the state of Haryana.