The Kerala Assembly on Monday unanimously passed a resolution to change the name of state to “Keralam” urging the Centre to officially change the state’s name.
This marks the second instance of the state passing this resolution, following technical adjustments recommended by the Union Home Ministry after their review of the initial name change resolution.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who introduced the resolution, urged the union government to change the southern state’s name from “Kerala” to “Keralam” in all languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
While presenting the resolution, the Chief Minister stated that the state is referred to as ‘Keralam’ in Malayalam and emphasized that the call for a united Kerala for Malayalam-speaking communities has been strong since the national freedom struggle.
“But 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.
After the presentation, the Chief Minister mentioned that further review necessitated changes to the earlier resolution.
The resolution received support from both the ruling LDF members and the opposition Congress-led UDF.
UDF legislator N Shamsudeen proposed some amendments to alter the structure of the resolution, but these were later rejected by the government.
Finally, Speaker A N Shamseer declared the resolution unanimously adopted by the assembly.
With inputs from PTI.