Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has announced that Moradabad’s Linepar area will be renamed Dau Dayal Khanna Nagar, placing a former Congress legislator and early Ram temple campaigner at the centre of the state’s continuing politics of commemoration.
The announcement was made on Monday during a public event in Moradabad, where Adityanath inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for 63 development projects worth ₹365.50 crore. The package included 26 completed projects valued at ₹136.15 crore and 37 projects worth ₹229.35 crore for which foundation stones were laid. A war memorial, Shri Ram Vatika and a sports park were among the projects opened to the public.
Adityanath said Khanna deserved formal recognition for his role in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, describing him as a figure whose contribution had not been adequately acknowledged in public memory. The chief minister said his own guru, Mahant Avaidyanath, had served as president of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mukti Yajna Samiti formed in 1983, while Khanna functioned as its general secretary and remained associated with the campaign through its formative phase.
The proposed renaming gives political salience to a figure who occupied an unusual place in the history of the Ayodhya movement. Khanna was linked to the Congress tradition, served as an MLA from the Moradabad region and was also associated with the freedom struggle. His public intervention in 1983, when he raised the issue of Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura, is widely regarded as one of the early political triggers that helped move the temple question from religious platforms into organised mobilisation.
Khanna is understood to have written to then prime minister Indira Gandhi in May 1983 seeking the restoration of the three disputed religious sites to Hindus. He also addressed meetings where the issue was raised before wider political and religious audiences. The campaign later gained momentum through religious organisations, political networks and mass mobilisation that eventually reshaped national politics.
The Moradabad announcement comes more than two years after the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya in January 2024, an event that the Bharatiya Janata Party projected as the fulfilment of a decades-long pledge. The naming of Linepar after Khanna fits into a broader pattern in Uttar Pradesh, where the government has linked infrastructure, public spaces and heritage projects to figures associated with religious, cultural and nationalist themes.
Adityanath used the Moradabad event to frame the decision in terms of cultural restoration and public recognition. He said Uttar Pradesh would be governed by “Ram Rajya” and not by what he called “Babur’s rule”, remarks that sharpened the ideological tone of the address. He contrasted his government’s priorities with those of previous administrations, saying public funds were now being spent on temple beautification, memorials for freedom fighters and the conservation of cultural heritage.
The choice of Moradabad is significant. The city, known for its brassware industry and export networks, has also been a politically sensitive urban centre in western Uttar Pradesh. Linepar is a densely populated locality whose renaming will require administrative follow-through, including changes in municipal records, signage and local references. Formal notification is expected to determine the exact administrative scope of the new name.
The announcement also carries a pointed political message because Khanna came from the Congress fold. By honouring him as an architect of the Ram temple campaign, the BJP is seeking to widen the historical ownership of the movement while also challenging the Congress’s present distance from temple-centred politics. The move allows the ruling party to argue that support for the temple cause once cut across party lines before becoming a defining issue in BJP mobilisation.
Khanna’s political career was rooted in the Moradabad region. He was associated with the Kanth constituency and later remembered by temple movement supporters as one of the early organisers who helped connect the Ayodhya cause with broader religious mobilisation in north India. Accounts of his life also refer to his participation in the 1942 Quit India movement and to his tenure in public life during the post-Independence decades.
For Adityanath, the renaming forms part of a consistent public vocabulary linking development projects with religious symbolism. His government has pushed major religious tourism and heritage projects across Ayodhya, Kashi, Mathura and other centres, while also renaming places and institutions to reflect cultural or political figures favoured by the ruling establishment.
The Moradabad event also had a development pitch aimed at local voters. The projects unveiled covered civic and public infrastructure, with the chief minister presenting them as evidence of wider investment beyond the state’s larger urban centres. He said the government was working to provide development without discrimination, a phrase he has often used while describing his model of governance.
