Weeks after the chief minister Mamta Banerjee put forward the proposal, the West Bengal assembly has passed a resolution for renaming the state as ‘Bangla’ in Bengali and ‘Bengal’ in English.

While speaking on the issue CM Mamta Banerjee said, “Everyone would be happy with the change of name of Bengal. The people of Bengal have accepted the name ‘Bangla’. We have given importance to that. Congress, CPM,BJP have opposed to the renaming of the state. If the opposition is doing this for the sake of it, then it is very much unfortunate.”

The resolution passed in a special session of West Bengal assembly which was started at August 26 to discuss the renaming of the state.

She confirmed that the WB government will send the resolution to the center as it needs to be pass in the parliament.

She said, “Bombay has become Mumbai, Chennai has been renamed as Tamil Nadu and there are many other instances. The base is Bengal and we want to take everyone along with us. We are proud as Bengalis. Our intention is to make Bengal world famous. I hope this decision will be good for Bengal. There should be a brand of Bengal. We are proud that with your help, we could adopt this name.”

While speaking on the parties who did not supported the resolution, the chief minister said, “Those who did not support us in this, the future won’t forgive them. It will remain as a blot. The Congress has turned into a frontal organisation of the CPM by opposing everything. They play ‘narad narad’ by seeing any issue.”

She added, “Just because they could not pass the resolution, they are criticising it. I don’t think they have the right to do politics in Bengal who do not support anything for the benefit of Bengal. This is very unfortunate. We are also against the policies of the Centre but we cannot allow losses of crores in the name of Bandhs.”

“If the people of a party control the government like this, then you can understand that their intention is to oppose at every single step. Why should any middleman take its responsibility and say they won’t allow it? This is wrong and if need be, I will talk about this with the Home Minister,” she further added.

In 1947, during the partition, the whole Bengal province bifurcated into East Bengal and West Bengal. East Bengal became a part of Pakistan until 1971 when it emerged as an independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War.

By Prajakt K.