Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had said on Friday that the previous MVA government’s decision to rename Aurangabad, when it had been reduced to minority, was illegal. (Express Photo)The Maharashtra government on Saturday gave its approval to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad cities as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv, respectively.
While the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government had changed the name of Aurangabad to Sambhajinagar, the Shinde government added ‘Chhatrapati’ as a prefix to the name.
The decision to rename Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad as Dharashiv was taken during the last Cabinet meeting of then MVA government on June 29, hours before Uddhav Thackeray stepped down as the chief minister.
Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had on Friday said that the MVA government had taken the decisions when the government was in minority and are thus illegal. He added that the decisions taken by MVA would be reviewed and a call on renaming the cities would be taken afresh in Saturday’s Cabinet meeting.
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Speaking to mediapersons along with Shinde after the Cabinet meeting, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “We will bring in a resolution in the state Assembly pertaining to the change in names, which will then be forwarded to the Centre for clearance.”
The Cabinet, meanwhile, also cleared a proposal to name the upcoming Navi Mumbai international airport after late D B Patil, who had led several protests of farmers and landowners in Panvel district when CIDCO had acquired land in the area in the 1970s and 1980s. This decision was also taken in the Thackeray-led Cabinet on June 29.
The MVA government had also decided to name the trans harbour link after former state chief minister A R Antulay. The Shinde government is yet to take a decision on this.
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