WB House clears new name for state, over to Centre now

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Kolkata, August 29

The West Bengal Assembly today passed a resolution to drop “West” from the name of the state to become known simply as “Bengal”. According to the resolution, the state will be called “Bangla” in Bengali and “Bangal” in Hindi.

While the new nomenclature proposed is faithful to what the state is ordinarily called in the three respective languages, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the state is rooting for the change out of practical considerations.

If the state’s name starts with B instead of W, it will move up in the alphabetical order among states and this has inherent advantages. Mamata today mentioned how Sukhbir Singh Badal, despite being Deputy Chief Minister, was given preference over her for speaking at an inter-state council meeting because Punjab figures ahead of West Bengal in the English alphabetical order.

Later today, the Chief Minister also spoke to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on the subject. “I told him to approve the resolution expeditiously. He said he would look into the matter,” Mamata informed reporters here.

Even though the proposal has received support from important members of the Bengali intelligentsia, the resolution today faced opposition in the Assembly.

Congress said a committee should be set up to deliberate on the subject and propose a new name for the state. The Congress, which has 44 members in the 294-member Assembly, walked out when its demand was turned down. Left parties opposed the three-name formula for re-naming the state and wanted it to be rechristened simply as “Bangla”.

The BJP opposed the resolution, saying it was a ploy to put the history of the 1947 partition of the country on the back burner.