Kerala to Keralam: Union Cabinet may approve name change for state

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• Union Cabinet may approve renaming Kerala to Keralam today
• Kerala Assembly passed resolution to change state's official name
• Union Cabinet meets for first time at new PM Modi office

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The Union Cabinet may approve the name change for Kerala today, reports have said. The southern state's name might be changed to Keralam, the reports further said.

The Kerala Legislative Assembly has already approved a resolution seeking a change in the state’s official name in government records.

The state is due to hold elections before May to choose 140 members of the विधानसभा, though the Election Commission of India has not yet announced the polling schedule.

In 2024, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan introduced a resolution urging the Union government to rename the state from “Kerala” to “Keralam” across all languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

The Assembly cleared the proposal again on June 25, 2024, after the Union Home Ministry recommended certain technical modifications while reviewing the initial resolution.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that in Malayalam, the state is referred to as ‘Keralam’, and pointed out that the aspiration for a unified state for Malayalam-speaking people dates back to the freedom movement.

“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,” Mr Vijayan had said.

Separately, the Union Cabinet is convening at the new office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the first time at Seva Tirtha. The previous meeting was conducted on February 13 at the Prime Minister’s Office in South Block, shortly before operations were shifted to the new premises.