In a major move hours before he resigned as chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday, 29 June, approved the renaming of Aurangabad to Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad to Dharashiv, in an assertion of the Sena's Maratha-Hindutva ideology.
The decisions were passed at the Maharashtra Cabinet held in the evening, where Uddhav Thackeray thanked his cabinet colleagues for the cooperation they extended in the last two and a half years.
The Cabinet also approved the Congress's proposal of renaming the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport after late farmers' leader DB Patil.
Sambhaji was the eldest son of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the Maratha king after whom the party is named. He was killed on the orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, who gave Aurangabad its name in the 17th century. Osmanabad, named after Hyderabad's last ruler Mir Osman Ali Khan, derives its new name, Dharashiv, from sixth-century caves near the city.