KOZHIKODE: K Surendran, Kerala BJP chief and Rahul Gandhi‘s rival in Wayanad, has stirred up a hornets’ nest by saying it will be his priority if elected to rename Sultan Bathery in the district as “Ganapathivattom”. Sultan Bathery is linked to Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan, who had led a military expedition to Malabar in the late 1700s.
Left-led LDF and Congress-led UDF condemned the remarks along with several writers and cultural activists as an attempt to experiment with divisive name change politics and “impose Hindutva”.The previous BJP govt in Karnataka had mounted an offensive against names and events associated with Tipu.
“It’s not Sultan Bathery, it is Ganapathivattom. Everybody knows it. Didn’t the place exist before Tipu’s invasion? Didn’t it have a name before that?” Surendran said at Thamarassery in Kozhikode on Thursday.
He claimed the demand was made by BJP’s Pramod Mahajan in 1984 and alleged that those who supported Tipu’s invasion – Congress and LDF – called the place Sultan Bathery. “Why should such a beautiful place be known by the name of a violent person who carried out religious conversions, destruction of temples and invasions here?” asked Surendran.
CPM state secretary MV Govindan described the comments as “just Surendran’s wish” and claimed that replacing historical place names with those related to India’s “mythical systems was part of a Fascist agenda”.
Congress MLA T Sidique said Surendran would finish “third” in the race and his desire “won’t become a reality”. IUML’s PK Kunhalikutty echoed the view: “He won’t win anyway, and he won’t be able to change the name.”