BJP blocking name change of West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee

CM raises pitch for naming her State as Bangla

November 14, 2018 10:34 pm | Updated 11:26 pm IST - Kolkata

Mamata Banerjee.

Mamata Banerjee.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday raised the pitch for changing the name of the State to Bangla, saying that the proposal has been lying with the Centre for a long time.

Ms. Banerjee, through a long post on social media, said that the West Bengal State Assembly had passed a unanimous resolution “to change the name of our state on the basis of local sentiments related to our mother tongue, Bangla”.

“It was resolved that the name of the state be changed from West Bengal to Bengal in English, Bangla in Bengali and Bangal in Hindi and the resolution was sent to the Union Home Ministry,” she added.

Unanimous resolution

“However, the Ministry advised us to use the name Bangla in all three languages. Accordingly, our Assembly passed an unanimous resolution to change the name of the state to Bangla in all three languages and sent it to the ministry again,” the Chief Minister said.

She alleged that almost every day the “BJP has been changing the names of historical places and institutions unilaterally to suit their own political vested interests… But in respect of Bengal, the attitude is totally different.”

The Trinamool Congress government, since 2016, has been keen on changing name of the State to Bangla. One of the reasons cited by the State government is that West Bengal comes at the bottom of alphabetic order in the list of States.

‘Not a hurdle’

In an oblique reference to reports that the Centre has objected to ‘Bangla’ because the similarity with Bangladesh could create problems, Ms. Banerjee said “similarity of names should not create a hurdle”.

“There is a Punjab in our neighbouring country as well as in India,” she argued.

The Chief Minister said that the developments show “deprivation to the people of Bengal” and the people of the State “must get a positive response immediately”.

State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said that Bangla was a language and cannot be the name of a State.

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