Union Cabinet Clears Proposal To Rename Kerala As ‘Keralam’; Bill To Be Sent To State Assembly Under Article 3

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal to alter the name of the state of Kerala to “Keralam”, setting in motion the constitutional process required to formally change the state’s name in central records and the Constitution. The decision comes months ahead of the Kerala Assembly elections, due in the first half of the year.

Addressing mediapersons after the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2026, will now be referred by the President to the Kerala Legislative Assembly for its views, as mandated under the proviso to Article 3 of the Constitution.

“After the Union Cabinet’s approval, the President will refer the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2026, to the State Legislative Assembly of Kerala for its views. Once those views are received, the Centre will take further action and obtain the President’s recommendation for introducing the Bill in Parliament,” Vaishnaw said.

The constitutional process

The Cabinet clearance marks a crucial procedural step in the renaming process, which requires Parliament to amend the First Schedule of the Constitution. Under Article 3, Parliament is empowered to alter the name of an existing state, but only after the President seeks the opinion of the state legislature concerned.

The move follows a resolution passed by the Kerala Legislative Assembly on June 24, 2024, urging the Centre to officially change the state’s name from “Kerala” to “Keralam”. The Assembly had unanimously adopted the resolution after an earlier version was returned with suggestions for technical corrections.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who moved the resolution, had argued that while the state is referred to as “Keralam” in Malayalam, its constitutional name continues to be recorded as “Kerala”. He traced the demand to the linguistic reorganisation of states in 1956 and the long-standing movement for a unified Malayalam-speaking region during the freedom struggle.

The rationale behind the proposed renaming

In the resolution, the Kerala Assembly noted that states were formed on linguistic lines on November 1, 1956, a date celebrated as Kerala Piravi Day, and asserted that the continued use of “Kerala” in the Constitution does not reflect the state’s linguistic identity. The Assembly appealed to the Centre to amend the Constitution under Article 3 to reflect the name “Keralam”.

According to the government, the proposal was examined in detail by the Ministry of Home Affairs and vetted by the Department of Legal Affairs and the Legislative Department of the Ministry of Law and Justice. The draft Cabinet note was approved after concurrence from Union Home Minister Amit Shah, following which the matter was placed before the Cabinet.

Once the Kerala Assembly communicates its views on the proposed Bill, the Centre will move to introduce the Kerala (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2026, in Parliament, along with the President’s recommendation. If passed, the amendment will update the state’s name as “Keralam” in the First Schedule of the Constitution and in official central records, including references across all languages listed in the Eighth Schedule.

The political significance

The timing of the Cabinet decision is politically significant, with Kerala expected to go to the polls before May to elect its 140-member Assembly, though the Election Commission is yet to announce the election schedule.

While largely symbolic, the renaming is being seen by the state government as a correction of a historical anomaly and an assertion of linguistic identity, even as the constitutional process for the change formally begins.

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