West Bengal might soon get a new name if the suggested name ‘Bangla’ is approved by the Home Ministry.
On Thursday, the West Bengal Assembly passed a resolution to change the name of the state to ‘Bangla’ in all three languages i.e. Bengali, English and Hindi. The next step in the process is the requirement of the approval of the Centre. Once the name is cleared, West Bengal can officially become ‘Bangla’.
This unanimous decision was taken by the state Cabinet after two years of passing a resolution to change the state’s name.
On August 2016 the Cabinet passed a resolution of giving three different names to the state according to the language– Bengal in English, Bangla in Bengali and Bengal in Hindi. The Home Ministry rejected the proposal pointing out the absurdity of giving three different names to a single state.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her distress earlier regarding the name of the state. She said that in the meeting among the states or with the Centre, she addressed in the last because of the name of the state as the list was alphabetically arranged.
Before the Partition into East Bengal and West Bengal, the undivided state was simply referred to as Bengal.