One of Uddhav Thackeray’s last decisions as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra was approving the renaming of Aurangabad and Osmanabad cities as Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv, respectively.
Thackeray announced the rechristening of the cities in a Facebook live followed immediately by his decision to step down as CM instead of facing a trust vote in the Maharashtra Assembly on Thursday, for which he did not have the numbers.
Aurangabad and Osmanabad join a long list of high-profile changes in city names in the last few years, the most recent being Allahabad to Prayagraj and Faizabad district to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.
Aurangabad, now a prominent industry centre, was given its name by the 17th century Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Chatrapati Sambhaji, the son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was tortured to death on the orders of Aurangzeb, whose tomb is located in the central Maharashtra city.
Notably, it was the Shiv Sena, the BJP’s friend- turned-foe, which had first demanded renaming of Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar decades ago.
A proposal to rename the city was passed by the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation in June 1995, but it was challenged by a Congress corporator in the High Court and later in the Supreme Court and made no further progress.
News18.com takes a look at the procedure followed to change a city’s name:
– The state cabinet adopts a resolution approving the change to a city’s name and the proposal is sent to the Union Home Ministry.
– Under the government guidelines for the renaming of railway stations, villages, towns and cities, it is mandatory to obtain a NOC from the Union Home Ministry by the state government.
– The Union Home Ministry then seeks no-objections from The Ministry of Railways, Department of Posts and Survey of India. These agencies confirm that no city, town or village already has the new name being proposed.
– While the renaming of a state requires an amendment of the Constitution with simple majority in Parliament, to change the name of a town or city, only an executive order is needed.
– Once the central government nod is received, the state government begins renaming the city in official records and sign posts at airports, railway stations and bus terminals.
– The central government has not yet given its nod to change the name of West Bengal to ‘Bangla’ as proposed by the Mamata Banerjee government in 2019.
– The last time the name of a state was changed was in 2011, when Orissa became Odisha.
– Bombay was renamed Mumbai in 1995, Madras as Chennai in 1996 and Calcutta as Kolkata in 2001. The central government had approved name changes for 11 cities in Karnataka, including that of Bangalore to Bengaluru, in 2014.
– In 2018-2019, the central government had given the consent to rename at least 25 towns and villages across the country.
Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here.
Comments
0 comment