West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday lashed out at the Centre for delaying the renaming of the state by ignoring the proposal sent to the Union home ministry in July.
“They are changing names of places unilaterally without consulting anybody. However, our proposal was passed unilaterally in the state Assembly. Yet they are sitting on it,” said the Bengal chief minister.
The assembly has proposed renaming the state Bangla. Banerjee said she had taken up the issue with Union home minister Rajnath Singh several times over the past few months.
“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…. But, in respect of Bengal, the attitude is totally different,” she wrote on Facebook.
The Uttar Pradesh government recently changed Allahabd to Prayagraj and Faizabad to Ayodhya.
Reacting to the chief minister’s allegation, BJP Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh said, “We hope the Centre would not approve the change which is nothing but a ploy to make people forget the history of Bengal’s bifurcation and the role of the Communists and Congress behind it.”
“The state will gain nothing but Mamata Banerjee’s party intends to gain by making people forget the contribution of Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s contribution to the creation of West Bengal,” retorted Ghosh.
On July 26, the state Assembly unanimously passed a resolution, recommending that the state be renamed Bangla, following up on a two-year-old effort to move the state up the alphabetical order of India’s states.
Detailing their efforts to change the name since 2016, she wrote, “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 changed from West Bengal to Bengal in English, Bangla in Bengali and Bangal in Hindi and sent to the Union Home Ministry.”
“However, the Union Home Ministry advised us to use the name Bangla in all three languages. Accordingly, our Assembly passed a unanimous resolution to change the name of the state to Bangla in all three languages and sent it to the Union Home Ministry again.”
In July a fresh resolution was passed to change the name to “Bangla”.
“But, it is pending there for a long, long time. It clearly shows deprivation to the people of Bengal.”
The chief minister also said that the apparent similarity between the proposed new name and Bangladesh “should not create a hurdle. There is a Punjab in our neighbouring country as well as in India.”
Criticising the BJP, she said a political party with “zero strength” in the state cannot decide on changing the name of that state.
In 2016, ruling party leaders in Bengal argued for the change since the state’s representatives got to speak at the end of every national-level meeting in Delhi since West Bengal appeared last in the alphabetical order.
The renaming will help the state appear at the fourth spot after Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Assam in the alphabetic order of the states.
First Published: Nov 14, 2018 16:56 IST
Source: HindustanTimes