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Journalism of Courage
A delegation of 12 Trinamool Congress lawmakers on Wednesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and urged him to bring in a necessary Constitutional amendment during the ongoing monsoon session of Parliament to change the name of West Bengal to Bangla, a demand od the state government which has been pending with the Centre.
During the meeting that lasted for about 25 minutes, the TMC MPs, led by party’s leaders in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha — Sudip Bandopadhyay and Derek O’Brien — respectively, told the Prime Minister about the two resolutions passed by the West Bengal Assembly for changing the name of the state.
They also submitted all the letters written by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to the Centre over the years on renaming of the state. TMC MPs Sougata Roy, Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, Mohua Moitra, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Abhishek Banerjee were also a part of the delegation.
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The TMC MPs sought an appointment with the Prime Minister on the issue after Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishen Reddy told Lok Sabha that there was no plan pf the central government to change the name of West Bengal.
TMC MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray raised the issue during Zero Hour in Rajya Sabha. Ray said that “no geographical territory ever existed officially to be known as East Bengal”. “The word Bangla or the territory called Bangla is believed to have been derived from Banga, a Dravidian tribe that settled in the region 1000 BCE,” he added.
In July 2018, the West Bengal Assembly had passed a resolution recommending that the state should be renamed as “Bangla”.
The Home Ministry, which is the arbitrator in the issue, has not taken any step so far in accepting the Assembly’s demand. —(With PTI Inputs)
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