Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. (PTI)
The decision to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad was taken in the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government’s last cabinet meeting chaired by the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on June 29, 2022 just before he resigned
Maharashtra government issued a notification on Friday officially changing the name of Aurangabad to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and of Osmanabad district to Dharashiv.
The notification issued by Revenue Department of the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government said suggestions and objections sought a few months ago have been considered and the “decision to change the names at the sub-division, village, taluka and district levels has been taken.”
The decision to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad was taken on June 29 last year by the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray just a day before he resigned from the post following a rebellion by his party colleague Eknath Shinde that eventually led to the ouster of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena.
Chief Minister Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, who were sworn in a day later, had said the Thackeray-led dispensation’s decision to rename these places was illegal as it was taken by it after the governor had asked it to prove majority in the state assembly.
In July last year, CM Shinde’s government gave a cabinet approval to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad cities as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv respectively.
In the MVA government’s last cabinet meeting, Aurangabad was renamed as Sambhajinagar, but the Shinde government prefixed ’Chhatrapati’ to it.
(With PTI inputs)