The large hoardings put up by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) to mark the citys 600th birth anniversary were defaced,with the word Amdavad (the way the city is pronounced in Gujarati) struck off and replaced with Karnavati. City-based Hindu Samrajya Sena claimed responsibility for the act,saying the Narendra Modi-led BJP government had betrayed Hindu sentiments by opting to use such a word. Incidentally,the Gujarat BJP as well as all Sangh Parivar outfits do not use Ahmedabad to address the city in all their official correspondence and instead use Karnavati. Even the state BJP presidents official address reads BJP State Office,Pt. Deendayal Bhavan,J P Chowk,Khanpur,Karnavati. Ashok Sharma of the Hindu Samrajya Sena said the BJP and the Parivar outfits had led a public campaign to rename Ahmedabad as Karnavati,to which many like-minded citizens believing in Hindutva had joined in. There were even lathicharges. All these years we have been taught to say Karnavati and now they call it Amdavad. This is an attempt to appease Muslims,betraying our feelings, Sharma said. The BJP and Parivar outfits have for long argued publicly that the city be renamed as Karnavati and not called Ahmedabad named after Ahmed Shah,who is believed to have founded the city. In its hoardings though,the AMC has chosen to use the word Amdavad and not Ahmedabad. Sharma said he remains ideologically committed to the Sangh Parivar and the BJP,but has no association with them organisationally for the last 13 years. He had in the past been involved in an attack on private news channel NDTVs Ahmedabad office to protest against one of its programmes,which featured artist M F Hussain as one of the leading Indians.
