Centre yet to approve renaming of West Bengal to Bangla; expedite the process, says Mamata in letter to Modi

The Centre has not yet given its nod to change the name of West Bengal to 'Bangla' as proposed by the Mamata Banerjee government, Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said Wednesday.

Rai said this in a written response in Rajya Sabha to a question from MP Ritabrata Banerjee.

"No, sir," he said when asked whether the Centre has cleared the name 'Bangla' for West Bengal as proposed by the state government.

Changing a state's name requires a constitutional amendment and it is done after taking into consideration all relevant factors, Rai said.

Ms Banerjee wrote to Prime Minister Modi to expedite the process of changing the state's name to 'Bangla'. 

"The name West Bengal is in English and Paschim Banga in Bengali, And it does not bear the testimony of the classical history that our state has," Banerjee said in the letter to the prime minister.

The state cabinet on September 8, 2017 decided that the name of the state should be 'Bangla' in Bengali, English and Hindi, Banerjee said adding that the Assembly also followed it up with a resolution on July 26, 2018.

"The chief secretary, West Bengal, communicated this position to the union home secretary on 21.8.2018 requesting him to initiate necessary action to alter the name of the state of West Bengal to Bangla in English Hindi and Bengali," the letter read.

"I would request you to kindly get this (required constitutional) amendment done accordingly in the current session of the Parliament," she said.

Read full letter from Mamata Banerjee to PM Modi here.

The move to rename is aimed at climbing the alphabetical sequence of state names in which West Bengal appears last in the list now.

On July 26 last year, the West Bengal assembly had passed a resolution unanimously to change the name of the state to 'Bangla' in the three most-spoken languages -- Bengali, Hindi and English -- and had sent the proposal to the Home Ministry.

The 2018 proposal was also referred to the Ministry of External Affairs for its view.

The state had suggested to change its name to 'Paschimbanga' in 2011, but it was turned down by the central government.

In 2016, it proposed 'Bengal' in English, 'Bangla' in Bengali and 'Bangal' in Hindi, which was also turned down. Finally, it proposed the name 'Bangla'.

When the earlier proposals were received, there was objection from the central government that suggested the name 'Bangla' had similarity to Bangladesh and it would be difficult to differentiate the two at international forums, a senior official privy to the developments said.

The last time the name of a state was changed was in 2011, when Orissa became Odisha. Bombay was renamed Mumbai in 1995, Madras as Chennai in 1996 and Calcutta as Kolkata in 2001.

The central government had approved name changes for 11 cities in Karnataka, including that of Bangalore to Bengaluru, in 2014.

On January 1 this, the Centre approved a Uttar Pradesh government proposal to rename Allahabad as Prayagraj.