As after a gap of 12 years state government moves to change the name of West Bengal again, while the CPI(M)-led Opposition agreed to take the dialogue forward, but the Trinamool Congress ally SUCI in a note of dissent termed the move as “superfluous and meaningless”.
After an all-party meeting on the issue and on the issue of reorganisation of a few districts on Wednesday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee told media that “earlier on two occasions - in 1974 and 1999 - the state governments initiated a move to change the name of West Bengal but those efforts did not bear any results.’’
“But on Wednesday we called an all-party meeting to re-examine the issue,’’ she said. The two names that that were suggested during the meeting were ‘Bongo Bhumi’ and ‘Bangla’.
The next meeting on the issue would be held on August 19, she told reporters at Writers’ Buildings.
Incidentally, in 1999 when the CPI(M)-led Left Front moved to change the name of Calcutta to Kolkata and West Bengal to `Bangla or Bango’ while it could change the name of city, but lost steam on the issue renaming the State due to objections raised by Bangladesh.
And finally the idea of changing the name was dropped.
Mamata Banerjee advised both Mishra and her party leader and industry minister Partha Chatterjee to consult both researchers and experts on Bengal to come up with suggestions.
