Chandigarh airport to be named after Bhagat Singh, says PM Modi; end of seven-year tussle between Punjab, Haryana

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Sunday during his monthly ‘Mann Ki Baat’ radio programme that the Chandigarh international airport would be named after freedom fighter Bhagat Singh. The announcement came three days before the martyr’s birth anniversary Wednesday, September 28, ending a seven-year standoff between the Punjab and Haryana governments over the naming of the airport.

Earlier, Haryana had objected that the airport should be named after Chandigarh only as it is the joint capital of both states. Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had agreed with Punjab to name the airport after Bhagat Singh but after the BJP, led by Manohar Lal Khattar, took over the reins in Haryana, in 2015, he put forth his view that it should be named after an RSS ideologue Mangel Sen.