Is it Albert Victor Road or Alur Venkat Rao Road? Whatever the name, there now is a proposal to rename this road as Tipu Sultan Palace Road.
The main road in Chamarajpet is in the midst of a renaming storm. While the State unit of BJP has opposed the renaming proposal, the BBMP is wondering when the road was renamed as Alur Venkat Rao Road in the first place.
It so happens that neither the BBMP nor the Department of Posts have any records to show when the road was named after Alur Venkat Rao.
Noted city historian Suresh Moona said that the road was popularly known as A.V. Road. “The initials A.V. stand for both Albert Victor and Alur Venkat Rao. The road was named after Prince of Wales Albert Victor to commemorate his visit to the city to inaugurate the Glass House in Lalbagh. It was probably renamed in the late 1960s and early 1970s when a number of roads that had Colonial names were rechristened,” he pointed out.
On Monday, a delegation from BJP, including MP P.C. Mohan, MLC Ashwathnarayan, MLAs S. Suresh Kumar, B.N. Vijaykumar and Jagadeesh Kumar, submitted a memorandum to BBMP administrator T.M. Vijaybhaskar urging him to drop the proposal. Their contention was that renaming the road would be an “insult” to Alur Venkat Rao, who led the Karnataka unification movement.
Conceding that the BJP-led BBMP council that passed the resolution to rename the road had not followed the protocol, Mr. Suresh Kumar told The Hindu that the BBMP should examine all proposals closely before clearing them.
N.R. Ramesh, former ruling party leader who proposed the renaming, said that during the last meeting of the BBMP council, over 30 road renaming proposals were approved. Initially, the proposal to rename the main road in Chamarajpet was not in the agenda.
“It was proposed based on a letter submitted by a private organisation. The letter did not mention that the renaming was for the Alur Venkat Rao Road,” he said.
