On Friday, the Maharashtra government formally changed the names of Osmanabad district to Dharashiv and Aurangabad to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.
The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government’s Revenue Department said that after taking into account comments and complaints raised a few months earlier, the “decision to change the names at the sub-division, village, taluka and district levels has been taken.”
On June 29, 2017, the then-chief minister Uddhav Thackeray decided to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad, just one day before he resigned in the wake of a rebellion by a party member, Eknath Shinde, which ultimately resulted in the overthrow of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, which was led by the Congress, NCP, and Shiv Sena.
The decision to rename these locations by the Thackeray-led dispensation was deemed illegitimate since it was made after the governor requested that it demonstrate majority in the state parliament, according to Chief Minister Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, who were sworn in a day later.
The cabinet approved the renaming of Aurangabad and Osmanabad as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv, respectively, in July of last year under the leadership of CM Shinde.
Aurangabad was renamed Sambhajinagar at the final cabinet meeting of the MVA government, but the Shinde administration added “Chhatrapati” to it.
