The Centre gave consent for the renaming of at least 25 towns and villages across India in the past one year, said media reports.

Among the pending proposals is one for the state of West Bengal, according to officials.

Allahabad and Faizabad are the latest additions to the growing list of places that have been renamed. According to officials, the proposals to change the names of Allahabad to Prayagraj and Faizabad to Ayodhya are yet to be received by the ministry from the Uttar Pradesh government.

Some of the approved name change proposals are: Rajahmundry as Rajamahendravaram in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh; Outer Wheeler, situated in Bhadrak district of Odisha, as APJ Abdul Kalam Island; Arikkod in Malappura district of Kerala as Areekode; Pindari in Jind district of Haryana as Pandu-Pindara; and Samphur in Kiphire district of Nagaland as Sanphure.

Other renaming proposals approved by the ministry include Landgewadi to Narsinhagaon in Sangali district of Maharashtra; Garhi Sampla as Ch. Sir Chhotu Ram Nagar in Rohtak district of Haryana; Khatu Kalan village as Bari Khatu in Nagour district of Rajasthan; Mihgawan Chhakka and Mihgawan Tilia as Mihgawan Sarkar and Mihgawan Ghat respectively in Panna district of Madhya Pradesh and Shukratal Khadar as Sukhtirth Khadar and Shukratal Bangar as Sukhtirth Bangar in Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh.

However, a proposal to change the name of Kacharigaon to Phevima in Dimapur district of Nagaland was rejected by the home ministry recently, the official said.

The home ministry considers such proposals according to the existing guidelines in consultations with agencies concerned, another official said.

The home ministry gives its consent to the change of name of any place after taking no-objections from the Ministry of Railways, Department of Posts and Survey of India.

These organisations have to confirm that there is no such town or village in their records with a name similar to the proposed one.

The renaming of a state requires amendment of the constitution with a simple majority in parliament. For changing the name of a village or town, an executive order is needed.

The proposal to change the name of West Bengal to ‘Bangla’, as suggested by the state government, was recently forwarded by the home ministry to the ministry of external affairs for its opinion as the proposed name sounded similar to the name of neighbouring country Bangladesh, the official said.

On Thursday, Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani said the state government was considering renaming Ahmedabad as Karnavati and the name change could be effected before next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

BJP leader Raja Singh said on Thursday that the party would “aim” to rename Hyderabad and other cities in the state after the names of great people if it is elected to power in Telangana after the forthcoming assembly polls.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, breaking his silence on his renaming spree across the state, said that the government “did what felt good”. Indicating that the state government is likely to rename more cities, Adityanath said that the required steps will be taken, whenever there is a need.

“We did what we felt was good. We renamed Mughalsarai as Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhayay Nagar, Allahabad as Prayagraj and Faizabad as Ayodhya. Where there is a need, the government will take the steps required,” he said.

A few days after Allahabad and Faizabad were renamed as Prayagraj and Ayodhya, respectively, more demands have been coming from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On Friday, BJP lawmaker Jagan Prasad Garg demanded the renaming of Agra as either Agravan or Agraval.

Garg, who represents the Agra North constituency, said, “Agra has no meaning. You check the name Agra anywhere, what relevance does it have?”

“Earlier, there used to be a lot of forests here. And people from the Agarwal community used to live here. So the name should be Agra-van or Agra-wal,” was his curious argument.

But for the people of Agra, the proposal is not welcome, said media reports.

Another BJP lawmaker, Sangeet Som, an accused in Muzaffarnagar riots, said, “There will be changes (in the name of) of many other cities in the state,” he said while adding that Muzaffarnagar, which was named after Nawab Muzaffar Ali, will be changed to Laxminagar soon. “We are only trying to restore the lost culture,” he said. He said the government was trying to correct the “distortion done by the Mughal rulers who plundered the country and harmed the Hindus”.

Last year, the Centre approved a proposal to rename the iconic Mughalsarai railway station to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya (DDU) station after the Jan Sangh leader who was found dead in the railway station in 1968.

Approval was also given to add the word “Maharaj” in Mumbai’s iconic Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. It is now known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus.

The last time the name of a state was changed was in 2011, when Orissa became Odisha. Bombay was changed to Mumbai in 1995, Madras to Chennai in 1996 and Calcutta to Kolkata in 2001.

The central government had approved the renaming of 11 cities in Karnataka, including Bangalore to Bengaluru, in 2014.