The demand to rename Dakshina Kannada district as Mangalore district was made a few days after the State Cabinet approved renaming Ramanagar district as Bengaluru South and Bagepalli taluk in Chikkaballapura district as Bhagya Nagar.
Earlier, Mangaluru Zilla Tulupara Horata Samithi demanded that the district be named Mangalaluru. Former president of Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, Dayanand Kattalsar, said that the Portuguese and British named the region as ‘Canara’ and later called it ‘South Canara’ which later became Dakshina Kannada and it does not gel well with native culture and ethos. He said there were historical references to the region as Mangaluru. There were some old ‘Paddanas’ (sung narratives) referring to the region as ‘Mangara’. Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) general secretary Rakshith Shivaram said the airport and seaport were named after Mangaluru. The buns (a snack) of the coastal region were popular as Mangaluru buns, while the tiles manufactured in the coastal belt were known as Mangaluru tiles.
In a statement issued on July 5 in support of the demand, Mangaluru City South MLA D. Vedavyasa Kamath said that renaming the district as Mangaluru would give fresh impetus to the ongoing fight for primacy for Tulu.
