JD-U MP urges govt to rename Darbhanga airport after poet Vidyapati

New Delhi: Janata Dal (United) MP Sanjay Kumar Jha on Friday urged the Centre to implement a proposal to rename the Darbhanga airport after renowned poet of the Mithila region Vidyapati.

Raising the issue in the Rajya Sabha during Zero Hour, the JD(U) MP said the Bihar government had written to the Ministry of Civil Aviation in 2020 on the issue.

Jha said it has been proposed that the Darbhanga airport should be renamed as 'Kavi Kokil Vidyapati Airport'.

The Nitish Kumar government wrote to the then Civil Aviation minister on December 22, 2020, that the airport should be named after Vidyapati and the Bihar Assembly and Legislative Council passed resolutions in this regard, he said.

"I urge the government to implement the proposal soon and honour the legacy of Vidyapati," he added.

Vidyapati was a 15th-century poet, a scholar from north Bihar and a polymath who wrote in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsha and Maithili. He is popularly known as 'Maithil Kavi Kokil' (the poet cuckoo of Maithili).