In a rare instance of unanimity on the floor of the Kerala Assembly, the treasury and opposition benches unanimously passed a resolution moved by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday, June 24, seeking to change the name of the state from Kerala to 'Keralam'.
The resolution will be sent to the Union government for approval.
In August last year, a similar resolution was passed unanimously and sent to the Union government seeking "immediate steps” to amend the state's name under Article 3 of the Constitution that pertains to the formation of states, any alterations to its areas, boundaries, or names of existing states.
But the resolution failed to materialise due to a technical objection and taking that into account, the Assembly on Monday decided to pass a fresh resolution.
More than a hundred cities and a handful of states have had their names changed in India in the decades after independence. The state of Uttaranchal was renamed to Uttarakhand in 2007, as a tribute to the Uttarakhand Andolan, the movement that had led to the bifurcation of Uttar Pradesh in the year 2000. Another state that changed names is Orissa, which came to be known as Odisha in 2011, following the Orissa (Alteration of Name) Act. In 2006, the Union Territory of Pondicherry was renamed Puducherry.
Among the capital cities Bombay had long become Mumbai and Madras, Chennai.
Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance came to power in India in 2014, many other cities have also changed names, notably Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh came to be called Prayag Raj.
Another state that has been asking for a name-change is West Bengal, which the state government wants to rename as Bangla, that would take it up in the alphabetical listing of Indian states.
(With inputs from IANS)
