DKS wants Ramanagar district renamed as Bengaluru South, JD(S) smells real estate interests

Signatories of the petition included Ramalinga Reddy, Transport and Ramanagar district-in-charge minister, Iqbal Hussain, Ramanagar MLA, D K Suresh, former MP, MLCs Puttanna, S Ravi and Sudham Das, among others.

Ramanagar is among the relatively new districts of the state and was formed in 2007.

“The people of Doddaballapur, Devanahalli, Hoskote, Kanakapura, Ramanagara, Channapatna, Magadi are all originally Bangaloreans. Ramanagara and Bengaluru rural districts were carved out from Bengaluru urban for administrative ease,” he said.

Ramanagara needs to be renamed keeping Ramanagara as the district headquarters, he added. “Renaming would help bring industries to the district and the land valuation would go up as well. Bengaluru has scope to grow only towards Ramanagara and Tumkur as it has Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh on the other sides,” Shivakumar told reporters after submitting the memorandum.

The JD(S), meanwhile, has criticised the proposal alleging that it was an “appeasement tactic” apart from turning the district into a haven for real-estate barons.

“The proposal has only exposed the secret behind changing Ramanagara’s name to woo some people,” JD(S) youth wing president Nikhil Kumaraswamy said.

“The dark side of this proposal is to turn the district into a haven for real-estate dealers. Another facet of this is appeasement,” he added. The attempt to rename it is to destroy the heritage of Ramanagara district, he alleged.