Belha Devi Temple Shaktipeeth uttar pradesh pratapgarh

Belha Devi Temple Shaktipeeth uttar pradesh pratapgarh

Pratapgarh, known as the 70th district of Uttar Pradesh, is also called Belha by the people, because there is a Belha Devi temple which is built on the banks of Say No.  This district is considered very important from a historical point of view.

This district is a part of Faizabad Division, which is named after its headquarters city Belha-Pratapgarh.  A local king, Raja Pratap Bahadur, whose tenure was between 1628 and 1682, established his headquarters in Aror, an old town near Rampur. 

Belha Devi Temple Shaktipeeth uttar pradesh pratapgarh

Where he built a fort and named it Pratapgad (fort of Pratap) after himself.  Gradually, the place around that fort also came to be known as that fort i.e. Pratapgarh.  When the district was 

reorganized in 1858, its headquarters were established in Belha, now known as Belha-Pratapgarh.  The name Belha was actually derived from the temple of Belha Devi, situated on the banks of the Say River.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of the country, started his political career through a padyatra from the constituency strip here.  This land is also known as the birthplace of the national poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan.

The names of the assembly constituencies of Pratapgarh, known all over the country for Amla, are Raniganj, Kunda, Vishwanathganj, Patti, Veerapur, Garhwara, Sadar, Babaganj, Bihar, Pratapgarh and Rampur Khas.  There are 5 tehsils in the district, namely Raniganj, Kunda, Lalganj, Patti and Sadar respectively.

Belha Devi Temple Shaktipeeth uttar pradesh pratapgarh

In Pratapgarh politics, the name of the three main royal houses was always there.  The first of these names is the family of Vishwasen Rajput Rai Bajrang Bahadur Singh, whose descendants are Raghuraj Pratap Singh (Raja Bhaiya), Rai Bajrang Bahadur Singh 

was the Governor of Himachal Pradesh and was also a freedom fighter.  The second family belongs to Somvanshi Rajput king Pratap Bahadur Singh and the third family belongs to Raja Dinesh Singh who formerly held the post of India's Commerce Minister and Foreign Minister. 

Their principality is the Kalkankar region.  Dinesh Singh's daughter Rajkumari Ratna Singh is also in politics and is the sitting MP of Pratapgarh.