Didi gets her way. West Bengal is now just Bengal in English

The West Bengal assembly, on 29 August, passed a resolution to change the name of West Bengal to 'Bangla' in Bengali, 'Bengal' in English and 'Bangal' in Hindi. However, the earlier proposed name 'Bongo' was dropped by the assembly.

Mamata Banerjee recently complained that she is fed up with speaking last at all meetings as West Bengal comes last in the list of 29 states.

The previous Left government led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had proposed to rename the state to "Paschimbanga"; however, the government had failed to pass a referendum on the issue. The name West Bengal came into being when Bengal was divided into East Bengal and West Bengal during the Partition. However, East Bengal has now become Bangladesh.

Popular sentiments were represented by famous writer Sunil Gangopadhyay's statement, "If there is no East Bengal, how can there be a West Bengal?"

Commenting on the issue, Mamata termed it a historic blunder of CPIM to not support the renaming of Bengal. Mamata also criticised BJP as she feels that in matters related to state and Centre, the BJP in Bengal is being the unnecessary middleman and she will speak directly about the issue with the Centre.

The procedure to be followed now requires the introduction of a bill on the proposed change of name to be introduced by the president in parliament, the amendment then needs to be successfully passed by a simple majority of the parliament.