Varanasi: Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday said the carpet city’s new identity is now Sant Ravidas Nagar Bhadohi.
These include the inauguration of 65 projects worth Rs 440 crore and the foundation-laying of 47 projects worth Rs 899 crore. “Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi , more than 80 crore people in the country are receiving the benefit of free ration and many other benefits. However, as carpet industrialists and exporters had concerns over an identity crisis for their product, which had a brand name as Bhadohi carpet, BJP chief minister late Ram Prakash Gupta in 1999 took note of it and changed the name of the district to Sant Ravidas Nagar Bhadohi.
On the same day, Yogi had announced the renaming of Bhadohi as Sant Ravidas Nagar Bhadohi.
“On the occasion of Guru Purnima , we had said that Bhadohi district, famous for its carpet industry, would in the coming time be known by the name of Satguru Ravidas Ji Maharaj, the medieval saint who united society,” Yogi said while addressing a public meeting at Bhikharipur Abhayanpur in Bhadohi after laying the foundation stone and inaugurating 112 projects worth Rs 1,340 crore. He said Sant Ravidas Ji Maharaj had envisioned an ideal society through his words: “I desire such a kingdom where everyone gets food, where the small and the big live equally, and Raidas remains happy. In this context, naming the district Sant Ravidas Nagar Bhadohi is appropriate,” said Yogi. CM Yogi, along with BJP national chief Nitin Nabin and state president Pankaj Chaudhary, on the occasion of Guru Purnima on July 29, flagged off the “Shri Guru Ravidas Maharaj Samrasta Sankalp Abhiyan” in Varanasi to mark the 650th Prakash Parv of Sant Ravidas, which will conclude on the occasion of the saint’s birth anniversary on Maghi Purnima on February 20, 2027.
This decision upset the Samajwadi Party, and after returning to power in 2012, the Akhilesh Yadav government restored the district’s name to Bhadohi in 2014. But when the BJP, which focused on developing the 15th-century poet-saint and Dalit icon Sant Ravidas at Seer Gowardhanpur in Varanasi, intensified its Dalit outreach programme, especially after the SP’s PDA formula worked against it in the 2024 Lok Sabha election and Uttar Pradesh approached the 2027 assembly election, the renaming was ensured.