Mangaluru : Former minister and MLA of Mangaluru UT Khader has urged the government of Kerala not to change Kannada names of places in Kasaragod district.

Khader expressed confidence that Kerala will not take any steps to ignore the Kannada speaking population.

Khader told reporters, “Kerala will not issue such orders to change Kannada names of places in Kasaragod. They should not do that. People in border districts are living in harmony. Hence, they should try to protect this harmony.”

Karnataka Border Area Development Authority chairman C Somasekhara also written a letter to the Kerala government with a request to not change Kannada names of places in Kasaragod district.

Somasekhara, in his letter to Kerala revenue minister K Rajan and PWD minister P A Mohammed Riyas, has pointed out that there was an attempt by the local bodies to change the names of some of the villages without giving any opportunity to the people to express their views.
“The change of names would drastically affect the feelings of the people and their emotions. This would also destroy the Kannada and Tulu culture, which is existing here from long time,” said Somasekhara in the letter.

After Somasekhara’s letter to Kerala government went viral, former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy tweeted opposing the purported move of neighbouring state.

“Before Kerala takes up such a process of changing the names, I want to bring certain issues to its notice. Kasaragod is a place that has close ties with Karnataka. Kannadigas as well as Karnataka have cultural bonding with people of Kasaragod,” Kumaraswamy tweeted.

In a series of tweets, the former chief minister wrote, “Hence I feel that it is the duty of both Kerala and Karnataka to protect the traditional feelings of Kannadigas living there. Though the Kannada names of villages are being changed into Malayalam, their meaning appears to have been retained. In this context, I request Kerala government, which intends to retain the meaning of the Kannada names of villages, to retain the original Kannada names too.”