West Bengal may soon be renamed as “Bengal”
- West Bengal may soon be renamed as “Bengal” as the state Cabinet took a decision to this effect on 02.08.2016. West Bengal Parliamentary Affairs Minister Partha Chatterjee said, the Cabinet took up a proposal to rename the state as “Bengal” in English and “Bango” or “Bangla” in Bengali.
- Citing examples of other states like Odisha and cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, he said the word “Bengal” has the state’s culture and heritage associated with it and so it has been decided to change it.
- Earlier, the state government had sent a proposal to the Centre for renaming West Bengal as “Paschim Bango”, but that never got the green signal. Mr Chatterjee said now the State Government is giving a new proposal. He said a special session of the Assembly will be convened on August 26 to pass a resolution to this effect.
- Independence and partition in 1947 led to the division of the province of Bengal into West Bengal, which stayed in India, and East Bengal, which is now part of Bangladesh.