Maharashtra govt issues notification on change of names of Aurangabad, Osmanabad districts
Mumbai (PTI): The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government has issued a notification on the change of names of Aurangabad and Osmanabad districts as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv respectively.
The suggestions and objections sought a few months ago have been considered and the decision to change the names at the sub-division, village, taluka and district levels has been taken, the notification issued by the Revenue Department on Friday night said.
The decision to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad was taken in the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government's last cabinet meeting chaired by the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on June 29, 2022 just before he resigned.
However, Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who were sworn in a day later, had said the Thackeray-led dispensation's decision to rename these places was illegal as it was taken by it after the governor had asked it to prove majority in the state assembly.
In July last year, the Shinde government gave a cabinet approval to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad cities as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv respectively.
In the MVA government's last cabinet meeting, Aurangabad was renamed as Sambhajinagar, but the Shinde government added 'Chhatrapati' prefix to it.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
