Kolkata: A new name could be coming for West Bengal.
State BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya said a bill to rename the state as ‘Paschim Banga’ is likely to be brought in the assembly during the next session.
The move brings back an issue that has been discussed by successive governments in the state for more than two decades. ‘Bangla’ and ‘Paschim Bangla’ were among the names considered at the time. But political consensus needed to take the proposal through could not be reached at that time. The Mamata Banerjee government initially favoured ‘Paschimbanga’. An all-party meeting backed the proposal, and the state government planned to send the resolution to Parliament for approval. That proposal also failed to move ahead. The Centre raised the similarity between ‘Bangla’ and Bangladesh as one of the issues requiring consideration. Changing a state’s name requires approval from the Centre and Parliament, followed by a constitutional amendment. The latest proposal goes back to a name that has appeared several times in Bengal’s renaming debate. The proposed name is Paschim Banga, and reports suggest that the government intends to use the name in English as well rather than retaining ‘West Bengal’.
The first major attempt to change the state’s name dates back to 1999, when the Left Front government headed by Jyoti Basu took up the issue. The issue returned soon after the TMC came to power in 2011.
“You will not have to utter names like Bangla or West Bengal anymore because the state government will very soon introduce a bill, possibly in the next session of the assembly, to rename our state Paschim Banga, keeping in line with its history,” he said. Bhattacharya has said the government wants a name that retains a historical association with the state.
The proposed name would also replace the earlier ‘Bangla’ proposal that was pushed by the previous Trinamool Congress (TMC) government. He made it clear that the government does not intend to revive the earlier ‘Bangla’ proposal.
