BJP rakes up Shiv Sena's old demand of renaming Aurangabad

A week after a BJP leader resigned from the post of deputy mayor of Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), his party has raked up the issue of renaming the city as Sambhajinagar, apparently to corner its ally-turned-opponent Shiv Sena.

A delegation of BJP leaders on Friday met Mayor Nandkumar Ghodele, a Shiv Sena corporator, to demand that Aurangabad be renamed as Sambhajinagar.

Ironically, it was the Shiv Sena which had first made this demand decades ago. A proposal to this effect had been passed in the general body meeting of the AMC in June 1995. However, it was challenged by the then Congress corporator Mushtaq Ahmed in the Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court.

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After his plea was rejected, Mr Ahmed had approached the Supreme Court, which stayed the process of renaming the city.

BJP group leader in AMC, Pramod Rathod, and other leaders of the party met Mr Ghodele, urging him to table a fresh proposal to that effect in the civic body.

Talking to PTI, Mr Rathod said, "We have urged the mayor to table a fresh proposal in the AMC general body meeting for renaming of Aurangabad as a Sambhajinagar."

"It was late Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray, who had mooted the idea of renaming Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar some 30 years back. His son, Uddhav Thackeray, who is now the chief minister of the state, has a chance to fulfil his father's dream," he added.

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