Haryana Assembly Agrees to name Chandigarh Airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh

Posted: 04 Apr 2016

CHANDIGARH, Punjab—On March 31, the state assembly of Haryana unanimously resolved to name Chandigarh Airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh. The state assembly has sent a recommendation to the Union government of India to implement the resolution.
The resolution was presented in the assembly of Haryana by Cabinet Minister Ram Bilas Sharma and was received warmly  by the present MLAs in the assembly.
Chandigarh Airport was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Established in the district of Mohali, the financial responsibility of the airport was shared by the Punjab, Haryana and Central governments.
In 2009, the Punjab Legislative Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution to name the airport Shaheed-E-Azam Sardar Bhagat Singh International Airport.  The leader of the opposition in Haryana Legislative Assembly, Abhay Singh Chautala, also supported Punjab’s naming proposal.
In October 2015, Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s nephews Professor Jagmohan Singh and Abhey Singh Sandhu, along with Aam Aadmi Party MP Dharamvir Gandhi, youth from Punjab and several other states, and activists from the tri-city, assembled at Tribune Chowk and demanded that the name change take place.
 On December 17, 2015, Communist Party of India (Marxist) criticized the Center and the Haryana Government for trying to name the airport after RSS ideologue, Mangal Sein, instead of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh.