The Maharashtra cabinet, in a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on June 29, approved the renaming of Aurangabad city as Sambhaji Nagar and Osmanabad as Dharashiv.
The decision to change the name was in accordance to the long-pending demand of Shiv Sena, which is a constituent of the three-party Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition government in the state.
The state cabinet has also given its nod to name the upcoming international airport in Navi Mumbai after D B Patil, which was a demand raised by the project-affected people (PAP).
Patil, a late politician and social activist, is revered as a local hero by the residents of Uran, where the Navi Mumbai international airport will come up. The PAP had, earlier, staged demonstrations against the erstwhile decision to name the airport after late Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray.
The cabinet meeting, where the key decisions were taken, was held hours after state Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari asked the chief minister to undertake a floor test in the assembly on June 30.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi government has moved the Supreme Court against the governor's directive for a floor test, as it pointed out that disqualification notices have been issued to 16 rebel Shiv Sena MLAs.
The political crisis in Maharashtra had erupted on June 20, after more than a dozen legislators of the Sena moved to Surat, in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Gujarat, and turned incommunicado.
The Sena rebels were subsequently shifted to Guwahati, in BJP-ruled Assam, as their numbers rapidly grew.
According to Sena leader and state minister Eknath Shinde, who is leading the rebel camp, around 40 out of the party's 55 MLAs have sided with him.
In the 288-member Maharashtra assembly, the halfway majority mark stands at 145. Sena (55), NCP (53) and Congress (44) are currently in power, with a total of 155 MLAs. However, with rebellion hitting the Sena ranks, the government may end up losing the floor test, analysts claim.
The apex court, by the time this report was published, was yet to decide on the government's plea against the Governor's directive to hold the floor test on June 30.
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