Agartala: The controversy that erupted over renaming of Ujjayanta Palace, erstwhile royal abode of the Manikya kings, to Tripura State Museum has ended with the state government agreeing to include the word Ujjayanta.
“The government has decided that the name of the state museum would be Tripura State Museum, Ujjayanta Palace. A statue of the erstwhile king Radhakishore Manikya Bahadur, who built the palace in 1901 would also be set up before the museum,” State Minister for Higher Education Bhanu Lal Saha said on Monday.
Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra, a tribal-based party, had written to Vice President Hamid Ansari (who will inaugurate the new museum) protesting the proposed renaming. The current head of Tripura royal family Pradyut Kishore Manikya had said he would launch a signature campaign against the proposed move.
When contacted, Manikya said, “I am happy that the state government agreed not to delete the word Ujjayanta and also decided to build the statue of Radha Kishore Manikya. So the debate is over and right now there is no controversy”.
Earlier, Tripura Forest Minister and prominent tribal leader Jitendra Chowdhury said, “The debate seems to be derived from a wrong conception or wrong interpretation of a unique initiative of the state government to preserve the heritage building and simultaneously recognising it before the world”.
The decision of housing the Tripura State Museum in the palace was taken in 1993, as it was made part of an accord signed between the Government of Tripura and one separatist outfit, which returned to the mainstream, Chowdhury told PTI.
Vice President Hamid Ansari is scheduled to inaugurate the new Tripura State Museum housed in the palace on September 25.
Ujjayanta Palace served as the Tripura state legislative assembly till 2011. (PTI)