Renaming city in contempt of Supreme Court

Aurangabad, Jan 16:

The guardian minister, Subhash Desai on Saturday, clarified the stand of Shiv Sena about renaming the city as ‘Sambhajinagar’ and stated that the Mahavikas Aaghadi will soon finalize the name as ‘Sambhajinagar’.

In this context, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Mushtaq Ahmed reacted to it and mentioned that it is the contempt of the Supreme Court.

Guardian minister, Subhash Desai, inaugurated several projects in the city on Saturday. While briefing the press, he said, Shiv Sena chief Balasaheb Thackeray had renamed Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar 25 years back. We are committed to rename the city, and all the 15 lakh residents should call it Sambhajinagar. Mahavikas Aaghadi will decide in this regard soon, he said.

BJP at various places highlighted hoardings with Nameste Sambhajinagar. Desai welcomed it.

However, in his reaction, the NCP leader Mushtaq Ahmed said, in 1996, the then chief minister Manohar Joshi issued a notification renaming Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar. This notification was challenged in the Supreme court. The court had trashed the state government in strict words stating that whether they don’t have any development works left and whether renaming is the only business that remained with them. Then the state government immediately canceled the notification. In 2014 during the final hearing of the petition, the court disposed off the petition stating that the main objective of the petition has been fulfilled. Hence, it is inappropriate to raise the issue of renaming again, Ahmed said.

Ahmed also mentioned that if the state government finalizes the issue of renaming, we are prepared for the judicial fight. The issues like renaming are not in the minimum common programme of the Mahavikas Aaghadi government, Ahmed said.