It has been in the pipeline for a few years now. But on Tuesday, the Mamata Banerjee cabinet finally gave a nod to change West Bengal's name to either Banga or Bangla. The choice is simpler in English: Bengal.
The need for a change of name was voiced by Banerjee a few years ago, during her first term as the state’s chief minister, essentially for practical reasons of state’s administration.
Representatives of the state at both the bureaucratic as well as at the political level found themselves speaking at the fag end of national level meetings simply because the W of West Bengal featured way down the alphabetical order.
The final push to the cause of change came after Banerjee returned from Delhi last week after attending the chief minister’s meet where she was most vocal on the issue of protecting the federal rights of the states.
The proposal would be discussed at an all-party meeting and then at the special session of Bengal Assembly which has been convened on 26 August. Following that, the matter would be put before the Parliament for consideration, informed Partha Chatterjee, state education minister.
Others, however, aren’t happy since they feel that the name West Bengal is symbolic the history of this part of the country, especially its partition.
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