West Bengal to be renamed Paschim Banga, says BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya

West Bengal is set to be renamed "Paschim Banga" under a new legislative bill, the state’s BJP president Samik Bhattacharya has announced.

Speaking to reporters, Bhattacharya said that a formal bill would be introduced in the first session of parliament to anchor the state's identity to its history. He indicated that the change would put an end to the confusion of multiple terms used for the state, including "Paschim Bangla", "Bangla", and "Banga".

"For a long time now, you will no longer have to hear names like 'Paschim Bangla', 'Bangla', or 'Banga'," Bhattacharya said. "Paschim Banga is coming."

A history of renaming efforts

The attempt to rename the state is far from new. The debate goes back to 1999, when the Left Front government first proposed "Paschim Banga" as the official name. That proposal was later altered to "Bangla" after a suggestion by the then-Congress MLA Saugata Roy, but the central government did not approve it.

When the Trinamool Congress took office in 2011, Mamata Banerjee's administration revived the "Paschim Banga" proposal. That effort was rejected by the UPA-2 central government.

In 2016, the state government tried a different strategy, suggesting three different names depending on the language: "Bangla" in Bengali, "Bengal" in English, and "Bangal" in Hindi. They eventually simplified this to "Bangla" across all three languages.

By July 2018, the West Bengal assembly had passed a formal resolution to adopt "Bangla" and sent it to New Delhi. However, the Union government withheld clearance, noting that such a change required a constitutional amendment. Central sources also raised concerns that "Bangla" could cause diplomatic confusion at international forums due to its similarity to neighbouring Bangladesh. In 2019, Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai confirmed to the Rajya Sabha that the proposal had not been cleared.

Broader political remarks

Alongside the announcement of the name change, Bhattacharya spoke on several national policy issues, including praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent address marking 25 years as a head of government. Bhattacharya described the Prime Minister's speech as visionary and dismissed criticisms from the political opposition, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

He also expressed strong support for the Assam government’s recent decision to merge the State Madrasa Education Board with the School Service Commission, framing it as a necessary step under the New Education Policy to ensure minority children are not left behind in science and mathematics.