West Bengal may soon be renamed as "Bengal" as the state Cabinet today took a decision to change the name of the state.
State 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 was 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.
"Now we are giving a new proposal and will convene a special session of the assembly on August 26 to pass a resolution to this effect," Chatterjee said.
Another reason for changing the name of the state is that whenever there is any meeting of all states, West Bengal comes at the bottom of the list alphabetically.
"Our CM gets to speak last. There is little time left," a minister pointed out.
Secretariat officials said changing the name would require approval of Parliament.
