Gurugram: What’s in a name? A lot it would seem, going by the fissures in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Haryana that have come out in the open over the name of the Maharishi Chyawan Government Medical College in Koriawas village, Mahendragarh district.
The Rs 725.9-crore, 800-bed medical college, OPD services of which started on 1 May 2025, has become a cause for regional chauvinism and political tension, with villagers and some BJP leaders insisting it be named after freedom fighter Rao Tula Ram, but others, including the state BJP leadership, are standing up for the existing name in honour of the ayurvedic sage Maharishi Chyawan.
The row has been driving a 94-day protest, laying bare intra-party splits and challenging the government to respond to the local mood.
The medical college, built on 80 acres of land contributed by the Koriawas gram panchayat, was formally named Maharishi Chyawan Government Medical College, in honour of the sage’s historical association with Dhosi Hill, a place of religious importance in the area.
The choice, ‘legalised’ with signboards put up on 4-5 May 2025, was met with outrage by villagers who had been anticipating the institution to pay tribute to Rao Tula Ram, an iconic figure in Haryana’s history owing to his contribution in the 1857 Rebellion.
The outrage grew louder when villagers defaced the college’s signage on 5 May, with a police FIR being registered against unknown persons, though there are no reports of arrests.
Since then, an indefinite dharna outside the main gate of the college, spearheaded by protest leader Nonihal Singh, has reached its 96th day as of 8 August 2025.
The agitating demonstrators, supported by more than 150 gram panchayats in Mahendragarh, have presented resolutions seeking to rename the college after Rao Tula Ram, whose battle site at Nasibpur is only 4 km away from there.
On 4 August, a tractor rally from Koriawas to Narnaul, with 100 tractors, ended with a memorandum being handed over to Deputy Commissioner Vivek Bharti, for Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, with 200 panchayat resolutions annexed.
BJP’s internal rift
The issue of naming has exposed cracks within the BJP, especially in the Ahirwal belt, where the party had won three out of four Assembly seats in the 2024 elections. Local BJP MLA from Narnaul and ex-minister Om Prakash Yadav, a close aide of Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh—a great-grandson of Rao Tula Ram—has publicly defended the protesters.
Yadav threatened that if the college is not named after Rao Tula Ram, the BJP will suffer losses in elections in the coming polls citing the “warranted” demand based on Rao Tula Ram’s legacy of more than 5,000 sacrifices in the 1857 uprising.
Talking to ThePrint, Yadav said there is public sentiment in the region behind the demand to name the medical college after Rao Tula Ram.
Yadav was a minister of state in Manohar Lal Khattar’s Cabinet with independent charge of Social Justice and Empowerment, and Sainik and Ardh Sainik Welfare from November 2019 to 12 March 2024. When Nayab Saini replaced Khattar on 12 March that year, Yadav was not inducted and in his place. Abhe Singh Yadav, another BJP MLA from the Ahirwal region and close confidant of Manohar Lal Khattar, was inducted instead.
Yadav told ThePrint that during a Jansamvad by former CM Manohar Lal Khattar two years back, Panchayats of over 150 villages met him and requested him to name the medical college after Rao Tula Ram.
Later, he, as legislator of the area where the medical college is located and Dharamveer Singh, BJP MP from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh Lok Sabha seat, met Khattar and repeated the demand, to which the former CM agreed.
However, suddenly, the government announced the medical college would be named after Chyawan Maharishi.
“Rao Tula Ram is the most respected figure in the Ahirwal region who led the 1857 rebellion against the British with over 5,000 soldiers. This was perhaps the only rebellion where the British lost two senior generals. On the other hand, only a small part of Chyawan Rishi’s Ghosi Pahad falls in Haryana territory while the rest is in Rajasthan. Even the Ashram of Chyawan Rishi falls in Rajasthan,” said Yadav.
The BJP MLA made it clear that the agitation by the Panchayats of more than 150 villages that has continued for over 90 days would be called off unless their demand was met.
On the other hand, BJP state president Mohan Lal Badoli defended the government’s move on a visit to Narnaul on 5 August 2025, by stating that the name represents local sentiment and Maharishi Chyawan’s historical link to Dhosi Hill, which is where his ashram is located. The protests were derided by Badoli, adding that society must look into the intentions of the protesters and that many institutions, roads, and statues already bear Rao Tula Ram’s name.
“The government did well. If the protesters’ demand of naming an institution after Rao Tula Ram is not fulfilled here, it will be fulfilled elsewhere,” he told the media, adding that services of the OPD have already begun under the existing name.
Supporting the dissent, Nangal Choudhary MLA and former minister Dr Abhay Singh Yadav have openly objected to the renaming, contending on social media that politicising the name of the college is inappropriate and that developmental work of the government ought to be welcomed.
“My humble request to all brothers and sisters of the 36 communities of Ahirwal is that after watching this video, please share your impartial and clear opinion on where such kind of politics is taking our region. If working for the development of the region and talking about progress is considered a crime, then what kind of politics are we supporting? Is it in the interest of the region to shut down and destroy such a large institution through political bullying? Please express your views openly and without hesitation. I sincerely request you to share this video widely across Ahirwal so that we can gather everyone’s opinions. Thank you,” Abhe Singh Yadav wrote on his Facebook page on 6 August with a video of protesters saying that next time they will come with a 1,000 tractors, buffaloes and domestic animals and will block the medical college.
On 7 August, Abhe Singh Yadav again posted on X: “As far as the self-proclaimed leaders of the Ahir community are concerned, if you want to see their true face, just ask in any village about the past assembly elections in Nangal Chaudhary. For these insecure and small-hearted people pretending to be great, the legendary Rao Tula Ram is merely a political shield, which they wear as per their convenience.”
Badoli and Abhe Singh Yadav didn’t respond to calls and messages by ThePrint.
Political and regional dynamics
The controversy has taken on political undertones, with village sarpanch Monica Yadav’s father-in-law Naunihal Singh alleging that the government’s reluctance to honour Rao Tula Ram stems from political tensions between Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh and the Haryana BJP leadership.
He added that Rao Inderjit, who has written to the government twice—in 2023 and 2024—requesting the college be named after his ancestor, has seen his pleas go unanswered, fueling speculation of intra-party rivalry.
Health Minister Arti Singh Rao, the Ateli MLA and daughter of Rao Inderjit, met the protesters on 17 July during a visit to inspect the medical college. She sat with them for a while and accepted their memorandum.
“She told us that she would take up the matter with Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini,” said Pradeep Yadav, a protest leader.
ThePrint tried to reach Arti Rao through a WhatsApp message. This report will be updated if and when she replies.
Other BJP MLAs, such as Mahendragarh’s Kanwar Singh Yadav, have supported the name change, in line with regional sentiment in the Ahirwal belt, a stronghold of the Ahir community to which Rao Tula Ram belonged.
On the other hand, Dr Ramniwas ‘Manav’, the head trustee of an NGO Manumukt Manav Memorial Trust that spearheaded the campaign for the name as it stands in 2023, vindicated Maharishi Chyawan’s heritage, highlighting his international acclaim for developing Chyawanprash and his religious stature to Dhosi Hill while speaking to ThePrint.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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