New Delhi, April 27: The New Delhi Municipal Council today deferred a decision on adding the suffix Haifa, after the Israeli port city, to one of the capital's best known addresses - the Teen Murti road and roundabout.

Social media had been abuzz through the day with a debate over the futility of the exercise ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Israel later this year.

Both Teen Murti and Haifa draw inspiration from the same chapter of history: the Indian Army's role in World War I battles in Sinai, Palestine and Syria.

One of the items on the agenda for today's meeting of the council was to add Haifa to Teen Murti so that the road and the intersection bearing the name could be renamed as Teen Murti-Haifa Marg and Teen Murti-Haifa Chowk.

Why the decision was deferred was not clear though officially it was attributed to lack of time. That there were differences within the council became evident after a member told reporters that the renaming had been cleared. The NDMC quickly put out a terse three-line statement saying the issue had been deferred but did not cite any reason.

The roundabout and the road draw their names from three stone-and-bronze sculptures created by Leonard Jennings to commemorate the Indian Army cavalry and armoured regiment soldiers killed in World War I in West Asia.

The three statues represent soldiers from the three Indian princely states of Hyderabad, Mysore and Jodhpur who fought in Sinai, in modern-day Egypt, Palestine and Syria. The statues were collectively named Teen Murti and the base carries the names of the officers killed in the battles.

Since the early 1920s, the statues have stood in front of Flagstaff House, the commander-in-chief's residence that later became the residence of Jawaharlal Nehru and then his memorial. The memorial is connected to Rashtrapati Bhavan (originally the Viceroy's House) through a direct vista.