Kolkata: Lenin Sarani, Karl Marx Sarani and Ho-Chi-Minh Sarani are among the thoroughfares whose renaming is likely to be recommended by a 10-member panel set up by the Bengal govt to rename roads, bridges and public places across the state.The advisory committee led by Swami Pradiptananda (Kartik Maharaj), which will hold its first meeting after Durga Puja, will take up proposals for renaming Kolkata’s streets in the first phase, sources said.Among the other members of the panel, which was constituted last Friday, are former Meghalaya governor Tathagata Roy, CM’s adviser Subrata Gupta and Kolkata Municipal Corporation commissioner Smita Pandey.“Ho-Chi-Minh Sarani, Lenin Sarani and Karl Marx Sarani will get new names. Proposals have come for other roads, too,” Kartik Maharaj said. “The members will consider the relevance of the personalities (after whom the roads have been proposed to be named) to the Indian and Bengali culture. Our recommendations will be sent to the assembly.”TOI has reported that the committee may recommend that Biswa Bangla Sarani be renamed Shri Krishna Chaitanya Avenue.Bengal BJP veteran and former governor Roy said roads honouring Lenin and Marx would definitely be renamed. “My suggestion is that Lenin Sarani be named after mathematician and Bharatiya Jana Sangh president Debaprasad Ghosh. I will place the proposal before the committee. Karl Marx Sarani in Kidderpore can be named after Michael Madhusudan Dutt or Rangalal Bandyopadhyay. The homes of both poets are in that neighbourhood,” Roy said.Ho-Chi-Minh Sarani, he said, should be renamed after Martin Luther King. “The road was named after Ho Chi Minh to spite the Americans because their consulate is located on that street. We will be honouring Martin Luther King if the road is renamed after him. At the same time, we will be making amends for the mischief committed by the leftists,” Roy said, adding that the statue of Lenin at the intersection of Jawaharlal Nehru Road and Sidho Kanho Dahar must be removed.“A prominent thoroughfare should be named after Sardar Patel,” he said.Dharmatalla Street was renamed Lenin Sarani in 1970, during the birth centenary celebrations of Vladimir Lenin. The following year, Circular Garden Reach Road was renamed Karl Marx Sarani. Ho-Chi-Minh Sarani was originally named after John Herbert Harrington, a British colonial administrator and orientalist who had served in Bengal.Roy said roads and places bearing the names of “communal Muslims” should be renamed after nationalist Muslims. “A bus stand in Barasat named after Titumir can be renamed after essayist Kazi Abdul Wadud, educator Begum Rokeya or writer S Wajid Ali,” he said.
