Amid the ongoing controversy over the restoration of temples destroyed by Portuguese colonists, former Goa Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Subhash Velingkar on Tuesday demanded that the port town of Vasco da Gama should be named after Maratha king Shivaji’s son Sambhaji.
Vasco da Gama, popularly known as Vasco, is named after the 15th-century Portuguese explorer who was the first to travel the Indian subcontinent, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.
“Earlier the display board of Vasco railway station, the post office had been mentioned as Sambhaji Nagar. The process to rename Vasco was taking place, however, it didn’t come to reality,” Velingkar said, adding that naming the state’s most populous town after the Portuguese adventurer, whose arrival in India subsequently paved the way for the conquest of Goa, was a “taint”.
“This has historical importance and documentation is there, whereas Vasco Da Gama just looted people,” Velingkar said.
In 2016, there had been protests after new ration cards issued to residents of Vasco, had referred to the town as ‘Sambhaji Nagar’.
Then Revenue Minister late Francis D’Souza was forced to convey to the state legislative assembly, that Vasco town had not been renamed, Sambhaji Nagar. Vasco da Gama railway station also falls under the administrative reach of the Hubli division of the Indian Railways.
While Vasco da Gama, has been credited with discovering a new sea route to India in 1498, when he landed in Calicut that year, Sambhaji, a Maratha military legend, was scheduled to raid Portuguese-held Goa in the late 1600s but had to call off the assault, because of the Mughal invasion of Deccan around the same time.