‘Renaming Aurangabad will add `1K cr burden’

Aurangabad: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Imtiaz Jaleel on Monday claimed that the name change plan of Aurangabad district to Sambhaji Nagar was only intended to change the documents of government department and will put a burden of Rs1,000 crore.

Speaking at a press conference, Jaleel—a Lok Sabha MP from Aurangabad—said, “Changing the name of Aurangabad will put a burden of around Rs1,000 crore on the government. This is only to change the documents of the government department. Common people have to go through a burden of several thousand crore.”

The decision to rename Aurangabad to Sambhaji Nagar and Osmanabad district to Dharashiv was approved by the state cabinet on June 29, a day before the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government fell following the rebellion of Eknath Shinde who later take over as the chief minister of Maharashtra.

However, condemning the former CM Uddhav Thackeray government’s decision to change the name, Samajwadi Party Maharashtra president and MLA Abu Asim Azmi had said that “Be it BJP or MVA - that is walking on crutches - they want to sideline Muslims.”

Azmi, on the day of big-decision, reminded the big names of the western state (Sharad Pawar and Sonia Gandhi) of his party’s support and said that the ruling party sidelined the minorities.

“I would like to tell Sharad Pawar and Sonia Gandhi that the government is existing with our support. If Government takes such a step, where will we go? I would like to tell Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar, Ashok Chavan, and Balasaheb Thorat, what do we do? Muslims are being sidelined. I condemn,” he had said.