GB meet postponed to avoid renaming proposal debate: BJP

Aurangabad: The civic administration’s general body meeting scheduled for Monday has been postponed to a later date.

The BJP is of the opinion that the meeting has been postponed to avoid discussion on renaming of the city.

The general body meeting of the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) held on Thursday was adjourned until 11.30 am on Monday, December 23. A fresh general body meeting was scheduled for 2pm on the same day.

In a letter issued by municipal secretary Dilip Suryawanshi on Sunday, said that both meetings scheduled for Monday have been postponed to a later date due to inevitable reasons. The date for the meeting will be announced later, as per the letter.

According to the BJP group leader in the AMC, Pramod Rathod, the meeting has been intentionally postponed. “The BJP had presented a proposal for Monday’s general body meeting. BJP had demanded that the name of Aurangabad city should be changed to Sambhajinagar. Mayor Nandkumar Ghodele did not want controversy, therefore, the meeting was postponed,” Rathod said.

A BJP delegation had met mayor Ghodele, a Shiv Sena corporator, on Friday, to demand the renaming of the city to Sambhajinagar.

When asked about BJP’s contentions, mayor Ghodele said that the GB meet has been deferred as the municipal commissioner is not available on Monday.

“The proposal of the BJP corporators for the renaming of the city was denied with discretionary powers of the mayor. For the last five years, BJP made no efforts to rename the city while the state had BJP chief minister,” Ghodele said.

The end of Sena-BJP alliance in the state had started impacting the AMC earlier this month. After the formation of the state government, the GB meet witnessed an uproar over the proposal to felicitate the new chief minister. Subsequently, BJP’s Vijay Autade resigned from the post of deputy mayor.