NEW DELHI: Deoband should be renamed ‘Devbrad’, said the new MLA Brijesh Singh , who has won the Muslim-dominated seat in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh for the BJP after a gap of nearly two decades.The city was known as Devbrad during the Mahabharata era and the Pandava brothers spent their one year in incognito exile here, Singh told ET. “But later the name was changed to Deoband, after the Darul Uloom Deoband school was set up here. Why should the town be known only by the school when its history related to the Mahabharata is age-old? I will press this issue in the state assembly,” he said.“It is not a Hindu-Muslim issue,” Singh said, citing three villages around Deoband as historical proof. “My own village, Jadodajat, is part of Rankhandi village. The ‘ran’ (war) of Mahabharta started from here. From Hastinapur near Meerut to Kurukshetra, Pandavas travelled for war through my village.”Another nearby village, Jakhwala, was originally named Yakshwala, where the eldest among Pandava brothers, Yudhisthira, was asked questions by the Yaksha (the righteous crane), Singh said. “Pandu sarovar (pond) is located nearby in village Jarodapabnda,” he said.Deoband, about 15o km from the national capital, is both a city and a municipality. “Darul Uloom Deoband is a simple university like the BHU. There is more to this area than that. When Gurgaon can be renamed Gurugram, then why not rename Deoband Devbrad,” said Singh, who defeated two Muslim candidates of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, including the sitting SP MLA Mavia Ali, to poll more than one lakh votes and win by a healthy 30,000 votes.“I cannot say if Muslims in general voted for me, but I am sure some Muslim women have voted for me given BJP’s stand on abolishing ‘triple talaq’,” he said.