Maha govt issues notification on name change of Aurangabad and Osmanabad districts

The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government has issued a notification on the change of names of Aurangabad and Osmanabad districts as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv respectively.

The 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 notification issued by the Revenue Department on Friday night said.

The choice to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad was made during the final cabinet meeting of the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. This meeting was chaired by the then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on June 29, 2022, just before his resignation.

However, both Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who were sworn in the following day, argued that the decision by the Thackeray-led administration to rename these locations was unlawful because it was made after the governor had demanded a demonstration of majority in the state assembly.

In July last year, the Shinde 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 added ‘Chhatrapati’ prefix to it.