Shinde govt again to decide on renaming cities

Chief minister Eknath Shinde on Friday said the government would once again approve renaming cities and naming the Navi Mumbai international airport as the decision

Chief minister Eknath Shinde on Friday said the government would once again approve renaming cities and naming the Navi Mumbai international airport as the decision taken by the Uddhav Thackeray-led regime was ‘illegal’ and could be challenged in the court of law.

Eknath Shinde (Praful Gangurde/ HT Photo)

The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government had in its last cabinet meeting on June 29 decided to rename Aurangabad as Sambhaji Nagar, Osmanabad as Dharashiv, and approved naming the airport after DB Patil. Chhatrapati Sambhaji was the son of Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji and was killed by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, while Patil was a local leader who had fought for the cause of project-affected people.

Shinde said after their (Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction and the Bharatiya Janata Party) letter to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari that the MVA government was in minority, they could not hold the cabinet meeting and take decisions but they did so. “The MVA government renamed Aurangabad as Sambhaji Nagar and Osmanabad as Dharashiv, which is illegal. We have decided to once again approve the proposals by holding a cabinet meeting on Saturday.”

“This is necessary because anyone can challenge it as the cabinet doesn’t have powers to take a decision when the government is in minority,” he said, adding that his government, however, had not stayed the decision.

As per rules, a decision taken at a cabinet meeting needs to be approved in the next meeting before its implementation, a senior official said. “However, the government can again bring the proposal on the grounds that the previous government did not have the authority and they want to legitimate that particular decision,” he added.

Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis also clarified that the decision of the erstwhile government was not stayed and would be approved soon. “When a government loses majority and when the Governor asks them to prove their majority, there is a convention that they are not supposed to take a decision by holding a cabinet meeting. Thus, as a majority government we have decided to again give the names of the great personalities by legal means,” he said.

The BJP leader was responding to Sena leader Sanjay Raut’s allegations that Shinde and the BJP were hypocrites if they had stayed the renaming decisions taken by the MVA government.

“Uddhav Thackeray took a courageous decision of renaming the cities and if this government has stayed it, then they are hypocrites,” Raut said, claiming that the Shinde-BJP government is illegal and they don’t have the right to reverse any decision because the Supreme Court is yet to give its ruling on the petitions filed against the formation of this government.