HT Correspondent

chandigarh@hindustantimes.com

Mohali : Days after the UT administration wrote to the state government objecting to the removal of ‘Chandigarh’ from the international airport’s name in signage in Punjab, a war of words ensued between MP Kirron Kher and Punjab health and family affairs minister Balbir Singh Sidhu.

The letter written by the UT home department, dated December 17, had asked the director, civil aviation, Punjab, and director, Chandigarh International Airport, Mohali, to take necessary action on the complaint of one Ajay Jagga, a member of the Chandigarh Heritage Protection Cell, who initially brought the issue to the notice of UT administrator VPS Badnore and advisor Manoj Kumar Parida.

“The dropping of Chandigarh from the airport’s name is an attempt at dilution of the original name of the airport. Punjab has no authority to change the name of the airport without the acquiescence of all the stakeholders in the project, namely, Chandigarh, Haryana and most importantly the Airport Authority of India,” a senior UT official, who didn’t want to be named, had said.

In a statement, Kirron Kher had stated that the airport should be named after Chandigarh alone, as “Mohali is not very popular”. She had said, “If the airport is built on the land that is in Mohali, it does not mean it should be named after Mohali.”

She had also said that she will take up the matter with the central government.

Punjab health and family affairs minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, on the other hand, demanded that the airport constructed in Mohali be named after the city alone, adding that those in opposition were demonstrating their narrow thinking.

Training his guns on MP Kirron Kher, Sidhu said Kher should know the city is named after the tenth Sikh master’s eldest son Sahibzada Ajit Singh. Sidhu said if Kher kept up with her antics, on her arrival in Mohali, she would be “gheraoed and we will boycott her”.

Significantly, both Haryana and Punjab governments have agreed over naming the airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh, but the main dispute continues over prefixing Mohali or Chandigarh to the name. The UT administration and Haryana favour keeping the original ‘Chandigarh’ in the airport’s name, but Punjab insists on ‘Mohali’ owing to it being located in Mohali.