Chandigarh: Setting aside all sectarian controversies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement on Sunday to name Chandigarh-Mohali International Airport after the great martyr Shaheed Bhagat Singh, is being welcomed by all Indians including the states of Punjab, Haryana, and Union Territory of Chandigarh.
Ludhiana-based Professor Jagmohan Singh, a nephew of Shaheed Bhagat Singh while welcoming the Prime Minister’s decision thanked him for fulfilling a long pending demand of all the Punjabis and all the nationalists.
The professor said, “We welcome the decision to honour the great freedom fighter. I think this was a long pending decision as the issue was raised in 2006 when a resolution was passed in the Punjab Assembly session on the 100th birth anniversary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. The resolution demanded that Chandigarh airport be named after the martyr.”
Professor Jagmohan Singh reminded that the then Haryana government started suggesting names of some other people and at that time a Central minister’s statement came that the airport will not be named after any particular person and will be named only after a city. Most people had criticised this statement.
In 2010, the Professor recollected that the Haryana government under the pressure of the people passed a resolution in the Legislative Assembly agreeing to name the Chandigarh airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh.
Jagmohan Singh appealed to the Prime Minister that the airport should not be handed over to any corporate, which would be against the socialist thinking of Shaheed Bhagat Singh.
He also recollected the wish of Vidyavati, the mother of the martyr that the photographs of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev should be put up together inside the airport because she believed that her son would not like to stand alone away from his companions who laid their lives along with him.
Modi in his 93rd monthly ‘Mann Ki Baat’ programme on All India Radio said, “As a tribute to the great freedom fighter, it has been decided that the Chandigarh airport will now be named after Shaheed Bhagat Singh.”
Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government in Punjab has also welcomed the decision.
Mann tweeted, “We welcome the decision to name the Chandigarh airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh Ji on behalf of entire Punjab…Thank you very much Prime Minister @narendramodi Ji…a big demand of Punjabis for a long time has been met”.
