Mamata Banerjee blasts at Centre over name changing

Kolkata: Lambasting the BJP’s politics of changing the names of popular cities across the country, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday accused the Centre of sitting on her government’s plan to change the name of West Bengal also. According to her, the Centre’s delay is a “deprivation” to the people of the state. The Trinamul Congress supremo also demanded a response from the Modi government.

In a Facebook post she said, “recently, I have been noticing that almost every day BJP has been changing the names of historical places and institutions unilaterally to suit their own political vested interests. After independence, there have been name changing in few states and cities, like Orissa to Odisha, Pondicherry to Puducherry, Madras to Chennai, Bombay to Mumbai, Bangalore to Bengaluru etc, keeping in view the sentiments of the state and local language. Those are genuine.”

The CM, however, complained, “But, in respect of Bengal, the attitude is totally different. Our 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 chan-ged from West Bengal to Bengal in English, Bangla in Bengali and Bangal in Hindi and sent to the Union home ministry.”

Ms Banerjee alleged, “however, the Union home 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 Union home ministry again. But, it is pending there for a long, long time. It clearly shows deprivation to the people of Bengal.”

She added that, “Undivided Bengal had Kolkata as its capital. The National Anthems of the two countries — India and Bangladesh — were penned by our son of the soil, Kabiguru Rabindra-nath Tagore. We love India and we also love Bangladesh and Bangla. Similarity of names should not create a hurdle. There is a Punjab in our neighbouring country as well as it is in India.”

Noting the BJP’s footprints in the state, the Trinamul chief asked, “whether a political party with zero strength in the state will decide the name of our state, or the unanimous resolution passed by our state Assembly in accordance with the Constitutional obligations and federal structure should be respected? The people of Bengal must get a positive response immediately.”

Ms Banerjee later claimed to a Bengali news channel that the BJP’s politics of name change of places and institutions have been ‘unilateral.’ She said, “I have met Union home minister Rajnath Singh over the name change of our state. When he came to Kolkata recently, I told him about it then also. He even acknowledged my letter.”

The CM argued, “We want to know why the Central government is dillydallying on the proposal, and at whose behest. The logic of Bangla’s links with Bangladesh is irrelevent. Although nothing has been intimiated to us officially, the issue has been hanging in a political loop. A game is always underway to undermine Bengal. When so many bills can be passed in the parliament through voice vote, the name change of our state would take barely two minutes to be passed in the House.”