Now Aurangabad is Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar & Osmanabad Becomes Dharashiv

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government on Friday officially issued a notification to change the names of Aurangabad and Osmanabad districts to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv, respectively.

“With the orders in place, the region, districts, tehsils and villages of Aurangabad and Osmanabad have been renamed as ‘Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar’ and ‘Dharashiv’ respectively,” states the notifications issued by Santosh Gawde, deputy secretary, state revenue department.

The decision to change the names of these districts was first taken by the erstwhile Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra on June 29, 2022, when Uddhav Thackeray was the chief minister. It was reconfirmed by the Eknath Shinde-led government on July 16, 2022.

The petitions in the high court challenging it delayed the official renaming. But the Bombay High Court dismissed the petitions, and the Union home ministry also gave the nod for renaming of the two districts.

Chhatrapati Sambhaji was the son of Chhatrapati Shivaji and was killed by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.