New Delhi, April 12: Manohar Lal Khattar offered "guru dakshina" to his mentor, the RSS, renaming Gurgaon as Gurugram after Dronacharya of the Mahabharat who is not exactly remembered for political correctness.

The Haryana chief minister, who like Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a Sangh pracharak before being "loaned" to the BJP, also re-christened the state's Mewat district as Nuh.

However, concerned that the Dronacharya association might spur a political controversy, a source close to Khattar claimed Gurgaon was a "distortion" of Gurugram and, therefore, it was "proper" that the "correct" name should be restored.

Agencies quoted an unnamed Haryana government spokesperson as saying Khattar "welcomed" proposals to rename Gurgaon, a glitzy cyber hub in the National Capital Region of Delhi, and Mewat because "Haryana is the land that gave the historic Bhagwad Gita".

The spokesperson's rationale for calling Gurgaon Gurugram was that it was established as a centre of learning by Dronacharya where princes were taught military skills.

Dronacharya threw out one of his most promising pupils, Eklavya because he was born a "low caste" Nishad and was not imbued with the "talent" to compete with "royalty". In the Mahabharat, an undaunted Eklavya taught himself archery before a clay image of Dronacharya and excelled himself. When Dronacharya learnt of his talent, he asked who his "guru" was. Eklavya named Dronacharya, after which the master-archer ordered him to offer his right thumb as "guru dakshina" which he did without ado. Eklavya lost a hard-earned, self-taught skill.

Asked how Khattar picked on Dronacharya to contextualise Gurgaon's renaming, a Haryana government source said off the record: "He is not an utterly good example in this age when political parties swear by Dalit and backward caste empowerment. But then nobody's perfect. He had his good and bad points but Gurugram is primarily associated with him."

Queried on why Mewat will be called Nuh, the source said: "There is no place called Mewat in the eponymous district. Nuh is the headquarter and the district should appropriately be called after it. The name Mewat came because the district was populated by the Muslim Meos. We are against naming places after religion and castes."

The Meos are Muslim Rajputs who have adopted a syncretic culture that allowed them to pray at Hindu temples and use mixed Hindu-Muslim names.

Khattar's proposal trended on Twitter and was laughed at.

Columnist and TV panelist Suhel Seth, who lives in Gurgaon, tweeted: "Dolts @mlkhattar needs to change the miserable state of facilities in GURGAON and not change the goddamn name. Insane."

BJD MP Baijayant Jay Panda's take on Twitter was: "#Gurugram may have been OK a few decades ago, but wouldn't Gurukilo have been more appropriate now?"

Congress's chief spokesperson, Randeep Singh Surjewala, who comes from Haryana, said in a statement: "Renaming of Gurgaon, which has an international branding, is an exercise in pure superficiality. The Khattar government should instead concentrate on creating essential infrastructure and building harmony...."

Surjewala slammed the plan to rechristen Mewat. "The BJP government has no comprehension of sacrifice, valour and nationalistic fervour of 'Mewatis' depicted in the name of the district."

When told that the name-change blueprint was not fully executed, Surjewala's retort was: "The government's spokesperson is on quote."

The source close to Khattar insisted that the move would be discussed in the state cabinet next week and if passed, it would be forwarded to the Centre for its approval.

However, the issue of changing names of places has been mired in faith or regionalism.

For instance, in 2014, one of the first decisions of the Modi government was to endorse a list of name changes in Karnataka, including that of Bangalore to Bengaluru and Mangalore to Mangaluru.

The Union ministers from Karnataka, who pushed the decision, argued that the "anglicised" name forms were "unacceptable" and the Kannada versions should be used.

Whenever the BJP was in power in Uttar Pradesh, high on its agenda was changing the names of cities like Allahabad to the Vedic Prayag, Faizabad to Saket and Lucknow to Lakhanpur or Lachmanpur.

The idea was never pushed to the logical end.

Likewise, for years the BJP has been toying with a proposal to rename Ahmedabad as Karnavati after a Hindu king, Karan Dev.