PM Modi to lay stone for university named after Jat king who once defeated Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during a public meeting, in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh (File image: PTI)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will next week lay the foundation stone of a university in Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh named after an erstwhile Jat king Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, who had defeated former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1957 general elections.

Announced two years ago by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the university will come upon 92.27 acres of land in the Lodha village of Aligarh’s Kol tehsil.

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The foundation-laying event will be PM Modi’s first of many visits to Uttar Pradesh ahead of the 2022 assembly election. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was in Aligarh on September 8 ahead of Prime Minister’s visit.

The Prime Minister’s presence at the event ahead of UP assembly polls assumes political significance because Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, the erstwhile king of Mursan, now in Hathras district, was a leader of Jats who are at the forefront of the farmers’ protest across the state, particularly in Western Uttar Pradesh, against the Centre’s three farm laws.

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Last year, the PM had virtually attended the centenary celebrations of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). Many in RSS and BJP had in the past demanded that AMU be renamed after the former king.

Born in a royal family in 1886 in Hathras, Raja Mahendra Pratap was a Marxist revolutionary and social reformer. An alumnus of AMU, he was an active participant in politics since an early age.  He contested elections as an independent in 1957 and defeated former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then a Jan Sangh candidate, from Mathura.

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Mahendra Pratap took part in the Balkan War in 1911 along with his fellow students at the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, which later became Aligarh Muslim University. Though Mahendra Pratap did not complete his graduation, he was felicitated during the centenary celebrations of the university in 1977. He was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1932

Records say that the king had donated 3.04 acres of land to the university on a 90-year lease that expired in 2019.