Centre never considered renaming West Bengal, says Mamata after Kerala name change

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday (February 24, 2026) said that despite repeated requests from the State, the Union government was not considering her government’s repeated requests to change the State’s official name to ‘Bangla’. Ms. Banerjee made these remarks hours after the Union Cabinet approved the new name of Kerala, ‘Keralam’.

“Why do we have to sit in Y-Z for so long? When the boys and girls of our State go for exams, they have to sit on the back bench. Whenever I go somewhere as the Chief Minister, I am given the last chance to be given this name in alphabetical order,” the West Bengal Chief Minister said in a video message. She was trying to impress that since West Bengal begins with ‘W’, the name appears towards the end of the alphabetical order.