Centre approves Kerala name change to Keralam ahead of Assembly polls

The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting held at the recently inaugurated Seva Teerth, the new Prime Minister’s Office building.

The approval comes ahead of the Kerala Assembly elections expected in April-May.

The Kerala Assembly had unanimously adopted a resolution on June 24, 2024, urging the Centre to change the state’s name to Keralam. Following the resolution, the proposal was sent to the Union government, which has now cleared it.

The Assembly had passed the resolution for the second time after the Ministry of Home Affairs suggested certain technical changes while reviewing an earlier proposal submitted in August 2023.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who had moved the resolution in the Assembly, sought the renaming of the state as Keralam in all languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. He had said that the state is referred to as ‘Keralam’ in Malayalam and that the demand for a united Kerala for Malayalam-speaking people dates back to the national freedom struggle.

He had also pointed out that while the state is called Keralam in Malayalam, its name is recorded as Kerala in the First Schedule of the Constitution.

The Assembly had urged the Centre to amend the Constitution under Article 3 to officially rename the state as Keralam across all languages included in the Eighth Schedule.