Lucknow: The Yogi Adityananth cabinet on Tuesday cleared a proposal to rename the city of ‘Allahabad’ as 'Prayagraj' despite protests from opposition parties.

Following the cabinet meeting, state health minister Sidharth Nath Singh said, “Allahabad will be called Prayagraj from today.”

Allahabad's ancient name was ‘Prayag’ but was changed after 16th-century Mughal emperor Akbar founded a fort near the confluence of the Ganga and the Yamuna, known as ‘Sangam’. He named the fort and its neighbourhood Ilahabad. Later, Akbar's grandson Shah Jahan renamed the entire city as Allahabad. But the area near the Sangam, site of the Kumbh Mela, continues to be called Prayag.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, during his visit to Allahabad on Saturday, had announced that there was a proposal to rename the city as Prayagraj ahead of the 2019 Kumbh Mela. "Prayag is where Lord Brahma performed the first yagna. The confluence of two rivers is a 'prayag', and in Allahabad three rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati meet. Hence, it is the king of 'prayags'. That is why it is 'Prayagraj'," the CM had said.

Slamming the move, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had “today’s rulers” were trying to show that they are working by just changing the name of Allahabad. "... They have even re-named Ardh Kumbh to Kumbh. This is toying with tradition and belief," the former UP CM had tweeted.

Government spokesperson Shrikant Sharma had claimed that Governor Ram Naik had already supported the “demands of the saints and the people of the Sangam city”.

The BJP government in the state had earlier changed the name of Mughalsarai Junction as Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Junction. Also, Mughalsarai was made Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyay Nagar. The places have been named after RSS ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay.