Kolkata, Oct 5 (PTI) West Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya announced on Monday that the state government will soon table a Bill in the assembly to rename the state ‘Paschim Banga’.
Responding to a question on the proposal to construct a Paschim Banga Bhavan in Varanasi, Bhattacharya said the decision to call the state Paschim Banga was taken “to connect it with its history”.
“You will not have to utter names like Bangla or West Bengal anymore because the state government will very soon introduce a Bill, possibly in the next session of the assembly, to rename our state Paschim Banga, keeping in line with its history,” the BJP leader said at a press conference here.
He said the state culture and tourism department, along with the Centre and descendants of the royal family of Cooch Behar, have planned the construction of Paschim Banga Bhavan in Varanasi, which will act both as a cultural centre of the state as well as offer residential facilities to tourists and pilgrims from Bengal.
“Varanasi shares a long-standing bond with Bengal, a spiritual connection. The first college for women was built there by a Bengali and the city has multiple schools for Bengali students. It has a strong presence of the Bengali population. The royal family of Cooch Behar had laid the foundation stone for the Benaras Kali Bari in 1836 and built twin temples there a decade later,” Bhattacharya said.
The BJP leader said that former politician and Maharani of Jaipur, Gayatri Devi, who was a princess in the royal family of Cooch Behar, was part of the erstwhile Left Front government’s effort to restore the structure while personally committing Rs 5 crore for it, which never took off owing to red tape hurdles.
A subsequent effort made by the TMC government in 2022 proved to be a non-starter, Bhattacharya said.
“We have now decided to build a cultural centre comprising a conference hall, library and collection of Bengali literature and songs, alongside parking facilities. The facility will double up as a place for stay for pilgrims from Bengal and will also offer a space for social gatherings for local Bengalis who have lived there for four to five generations,” Bhattacharya said.
Attempts to rename West Bengal date back to 1999, when the Jyoti Basu-led Left Front government moved a resolution proposing ‘Paschim Banga’ as the state’s new name.
The proposal followed a debate over whether the state should instead be called “Bangla”. The Left Front government eventually accepted that suggestion too and sent the proposal to the Centre.
The principal argument was to shed the colonial-era nomenclature and give the state a name reflecting its Bengali identity, although the process failed to achieve political consensus and secure the Centre’s approval.
The issue resurfaced soon after the TMC came to power in 2011.
The Mamata Banerjee government initially proposed ‘Paschim Banga’ arguing that the state’s position near the bottom of the alphabetical list of states meant its representatives often had to wait to speak at national meetings, creating an alleged administrative disadvantage.
An all-party meeting backed the proposal in 2011, but it was not approved by the Centre.
In 2016, the government revived the exercise with three names ‘Bangla’ in Bengali, ‘Bengal’ in English and ‘Bangal’ in Hindi and in 2018, the assembly unanimously passed a resolution proposing ‘Bangla’ as the single name.
The Centre again did not approve it, citing the need for a constitutional amendment amid concerns from a section of BJP leaders in the state over the similarity between ‘Bangla’ and Bangladesh.
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