Amid calls for renaming Aurangabad, Mahahrashtra CMO refers to Osmanabad as Dharashiv

Amid a raging war of words between Shiv Sena and Congress over the demand of renaming Aurangabad to Sambhaji Nagar, here comes a new development – the Chief Minister’s Office on Wednesday referred to Osmanabad as Dharashiv.

After the weekly Cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s office announced the decision on its Twitter handle.

“It was decided that in Dharashiv-Osmanabad, a new medical college for 100 students would be set up and establish a 430-bed hospital,” according to the tweet.

Incidentally, the tweet had a big photo of state's medical education minister Amit Deshmukh of the Congress and on top carried photos of Thackeray flanked by deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar of NCP and revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat, who is the state Congress president.

It needs to be mentioned here that renaming of Aurangabad as Sambhaji Nagar and Osmanabad as Dharashiv are long-pending demands of the Shiv Sena.

Recently, local leaders of Raj Thackeray-led MNS have met the district collector and demanded renaming of Osmanabad to Dharashiv.

“The process to rename the district had started when the Shiv Sena-BJP government came to power in Maharashtra in 1995, but afterwards the process stopped...The demand to rename the district as Dharashiv has been made since the past 30 years but it has still not happened. This has hurt Hindu sentiments,” the MNS letter stated, adding that renaming the two cities was the dream of late Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray.