History of Rajkot

As mentioned in poet Mr.Narsinh Mehta’s poem that kathiawad be a land of god, holy saints, which is importantly a part of Mahatma Gandhi’s nation, is a famous place for the king of the jungle as well in Gir throughout asia, whose giant roar brings a thrill to anyone who listens to it.

Rajkot city was founded by Thakorji Vibhaji in the year of 1610 and he ruled about 282 square miles area with 64 villages throughout. In 1720 the deputy subehdar Masum Khan belonging to Sorath regiment defeated the ruler and the name of Rajkot was changed to Masumabad. After that in the year of 1732 the son of the deafeated ruler Meramanji took the revenge of his father’s defeat by defeating Masum Khan again and kept its name Rajkot again

In the year of 1822 the British rule established an agency and kept its name Kathiawad agency. The present Kothi area which houses the customs and railway offices used to house the officials of that british agency during that period. During various changes there was a change in the leadership and again the whole area belonged to the agency which is at present the Sadar area Rajkot was linked with Wankaner through railways in the year 1889. In 1893 rail link was established between Rajkot and Jetalsar. During that time mostly meter gauge trains were used and which formed the main lifeline of the transport within the areas.

Due to meet the water needs of the Rajkot city which is built on the shore of the river Aaji a new lake called Lalpari was established in the year of 1895.

In 1921 the political leadership of the Kathiawad first met in Rajkot. And during this time Lakhaji Raj represented the first meet and established the first settlement of the political leadership in the area.

In 1925 Mahatma Gandhi for the first time visited the city and thereby established the first educational activities. Today it is a well established centre for rural industries.

In 1937 Vadhera started a wide agitation again the atrocities of Diwan Viravada and thereby started the first satyagrah. And this was finally resolved by Sardar Vallabh bhai Patel. This resolution was finally let down at a later stage and with this development Mahatma Gandhi started the hunger strike to denounce this move. 1942 quit India movement was also a major contributor for Rajkot to become a major hub for the developments as well.

Saurashtra in photos

The neglected Saurashtra region has various developments in the field of culture, and the true spirit of the people to share all the joys and sorrow and their experiences.

Districts of Saurashtra

After the partition , the region which came into existence in the year 15-4-1948 was mainly divided into 2 regions. The total area of the state was 23 thousand square miles. There were 4470 towns in the region. The total population of the state was 41 lakhs and consisted of the districts (1) Central Saurahstra(Rajkot district) (2) Sorath(Junagadh District) (3) Falar (Jamnagar district) (4) Gohilwad(Bhavnagar district) (5) Jhalavad (Surendranagar district). After the formation of the state, it has to suffer for 4 years in drought. After that due to heavy rainfall in the year of 1950 the area was highly disturbed and reported huge damage with both life and property. Kesare hind is a 110 years old bridge. Earlier the width of the bridge was 10 meters which was later increased to 24 meters and now allows a two –way vehicular traffic.

First elections of free India

The first elections of India were held in the year of 1052. During that time the country had 28 states and were divided mainly into three sections.

The section A had 9 states, section B had 8 states and section C had 11 states. In this saurashtra state was in two sections.

During the first elections there were in total 496 members in loksabha and 203 members in the Rajya Sabha and the government was selected by the total of about 19 crore people voted to select its own government.

In this elections the total voters in saurashtra were 19 lakhs. These were divided into 55 voting divisions. For Saurashtra vidhan sabha there were 60 and in lok sabha there were 6 and in Rajya Sabha there were 4 members.

For Saurashtra Vidhan sabha out of the total 60 seats, 55 were for general category and 5 were for the reserved category.