The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved a proposal to rename the state of Kerala as ‘Keralam’.
Following the Cabinet’s approval, the President of India will refer the proposed legislation — the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2026 — to the Kerala Legislative Assembly for its views, as mandated under the proviso to Article 3 of the Constitution of India. After receiving the Assembly’s opinion, the Union government will proceed with the necessary steps, including obtaining the President’s recommendation for introducing the Bill in Parliament to formally change the state’s name from “Kerala” to “Keralam”.
The development comes ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in the state, the schedule for which is yet to be announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The move follows resolutions passed by the Kerala Assembly in 2023 and 2024, when Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan sought to change the state’s name to “Keralam” in all languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. The Assembly passed the resolution twice after the Union Home Ministry, upon reviewing the initial proposal, suggested certain technical modifications.
The resolutions invoked Article 3 of the Constitution, which empowers Parliament to alter the name, boundaries, or territory of a state.
In the resolution, the state government argued that the name of the state in Malayalam is “Keralam” and pointed out that states were reorganised on linguistic lines on November 1, 1956 — a date commemorated annually as Kerala Piravi Day. It also recalled that during the national independence movement, there was a strong demand for a unified state for Malayalam-speaking people. However, the First Schedule of the Constitution records the state’s name as “Kerala”. The Assembly unanimously urged the Centre to take steps under Article 3 to officially adopt “Keralam” as the state’s name.
The issue of renaming states and cities has surfaced periodically in recent years. In 2016, Gurgaon was renamed Gurugram as a tribute to Guru Dronacharya from the Mahabharata, who, according to legend, was granted the land by his disciples. Around the same time, the RSS had suggested that Kerala be renamed “Keralam”, along with proposals to rename other cities such as Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, and Aurangabad.
Further action on the proposed name change will now depend on the constitutional process outlined under Article 3.
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