Kerala Assembly passes resolution to officially change state's name to 'Keralam'
Pinarayi Vijayan
In a unanimous decision, the Kerala Legislative Assembly on Monday (June 24)passed a resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to change the state's official name from 'Kerala' to 'Keralam'.
The resolution, moved by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, calls for invoking Article 3 of the Indian Constitution to effectuate this change in the First Schedule.
This is the second time the assembly has passed such a resolution, after the previous one sent to the central government last year faced some technical objections.
Vijayan highlighted that despite 'Keralam' being the commonly used name for the state in the Malayalam language, the official records continue to refer to it as 'Kerala'.
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The assembly will now send the resolution to the central government for approval. This move by the Kerala government is part of a longstanding demand to officially recognise the Malayalam name of the state.
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The resolution argued that the name 'Keralam' has strong historical and linguistic roots, dating back to the national freedom struggle.
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"The name of our state is written as Kerala in the First Schedule of the Constitution. This assembly requests the Centre to take immediate steps to amend it as 'Keralam' under Article 3 of the Constitution and have it renamed as 'Keralam' in all the languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution," Vijayan said, as per PTI news agency.
Previous state name changes
In recent years, there have been several instances of Indian states and cities changing their names.Orissa was renamed to Odisha in 2011,Pondicherry being renamed to Puducherry in 2006,Bombay being renamed to Mumbai in 1995,Madras being renamed to Chennai in 1996,Calcutta being renamed to Kolkata in 2001 and Bangalore being renamed to Bengaluru in 2007.
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The process of renaming states requires approval from the Parliament, while cities can be renamed by state legislatures.
(With inputs from agencies)