New Delhi: A political controversy erupted on Tuesday after the Center approved the Kerala government’s proposal to rename the state as ‘Kerala’, with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee questioning why a similar proposal in the state has not yet been approved.Banerjee lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, calling them “Bangla-birodhi” (anti-Bangla).“Smt. @MamataOfficial warmly congratulates the Union People’s Cabinet of Kerala for approving the renaming of their state as ‘Kerala’. At the same time, she reminded the Center that a similar proposal to rename West Bengal as ‘Bengal’ has been stalled for years,” the Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) posted on X.“Every election season, @narendramodi and @AmitShah come to Bengal, shed crocodile tears and pretend to love our soil, our culture, our people. Stop making trouble. These Bengali biroddis have no respect for our heritage, no respect for our language, no respect for our idols and zero concern for our dignity,” the party quoted Banerjee as saying.The TMC further said that while it is happy with any state “preserving its identity”, West Bengal will not accept “vindictive discrimination” from the BJP-led Centre.“Bangladesh’s legitimate demands cannot be denied purely because we refuse to bow to the high command of @BJP4India,” it said.The Banerjee government, which came to power in 2011, passed a resolution in July 2018 to rename West Bengal to “Bangladesh” and reiterated this demand to the Center many times.The decision to approve the name change in Kerala comes ahead of the state’s assembly elections, expected to be held in April. West Bengal is also going to the polls and is likely to go to polls around the same time.
