Union Cabinet approves change of name of Kerala to Keralam: Sources

The Union Cabinet is understood to have approved on Tuesday the Kerala government's proposal to change the name of the state to Keralam, sources privy to the development said. The move came ahead of the Kerala assembly elections expected to be held in April-May. The Kerala Assembly on June 24, 2024, had unanimously adopted a resolution urging the Centre to officially change the state's name to Keralam. Following the assembly resolution, the Union cabinet, in a meeting held on Tuesday, is believed to have approved the state's name change from Kerala to Keralam, sources said. It was the first cabinet meeting held at the recently inaugurated Seva Teerth, the new PMO building. The Kerala Assembly had passed the resolution for the second time because the Ministry of Home Affairs, which reviewed the first resolution, suggested some technical changes. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who had moved the resolution, wanted the union government to change the southern state's name from Kerala to Keralam in all languages included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. Moving the resolution, the chief minister had said the state was called 'Keralam' in Malayalam and that the demand to form a united Kerala for the Malayalam-speaking communities had strongly emerged since the time of the national freedom struggle. But the name of the state is written as Kerala in the First Schedule of the Constitution, he had said. 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 had said. The House had passed a similar unanimous resolution in August 2023 and submitted it to the Centre, but the MHA suggested some technical changes in it.