In a bid to raise stature in the alphabetical sequence of state names, West Bengal is changing its name to Bengal in English language while in Bengali version it could be either Bangla or Bongo. A decision to this effect has been taken by the state cabinet, state education minister Partha Chatterjee, said on Tuesday.

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A special Assembly session would be called on August 26 to discuss the issue, following which the Centre's permission would be sought, the minister said at the state secretariat. The change in the name of West Bengal is a no-brainer as the state is neither located in the western part, nor there is anything called East Bengal, experts said.

What was once East Bengal is now known as Bangladesh, an independent country.

Efforts were on to change the name since 2011 when Mamata Banerjee took the office of chief minister of the state and discovered an annoying truth.

Name of West Bengal always appeared at the bottom of the list whenever state representatives or event Mamata herself was supposed to address any meeting between the Union government and the states.

While West Bengal representatives always get chance to speak, patience of listeners wear out by the end of the meetings. And consequence could be frustrating if the listener is the Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.

Something similar happened – and provided the trigger for the latest action – when during the recent meeting of inter-state council meeting Mamata Banerjee had to wait the whole working day till 7 in the evening to get her turn to speak.

She had a host of issues to highlight like compensating revenue loss of approximately Rs 6,500 crore since 2011-12 to 2015-16, which has not been compensated and release of Rs 2,330 crore under the special backward region grant fund.

But Mamata told the waiting media personnel outside that few were willing to listen to her after long hours of meeting.