Trinamool Congress urges for steps to rename West Bengal

A delegation of West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress lawmakers met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament yesterday and submitted a memorandum urging him to take steps to change the state's name to "Bangla".

The demand of the Mamata Banerjee-led party for changing the state's name awaits the clearance of the Indian government after a resolution for the same was passed by the state legislative assembly, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

The 12-member Trinamool delegation led by Sudip Bandopadhyay requested Modi to bring a legislation to amend the name of West Bengal to "Bangla".

They also submitted all the letters written by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to the federal government over the renaming of the state.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trinamool lawmaker Sukhendu Sekhar Ray raised the issue of renaming issue during the zero hour in the Rajya Sabha and said "no geographical territory ever existed officially to be known as East Bengal".

"The word Bangla or the territory called Bangla is believed to have been derived from Banga, a Dravidian tribe that settled in the region 1000 BC," he added.

In July 2018, the West Bengal Assembly passed a resolution recommending that the state should be renamed as "Bangla".

The Indian Home Ministry, which is the arbitrator in the issue, has not yet accepted the assembly's demand.

Ray pointed out that after the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 following the award passed by the Radcliffe Commission, the eastern districts of Bengal became east Pakistan which later became an independent country of Bangladesh.