The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Tuesday approved a proposal to officially change the name of the state of Kerala to ‘Keralam’, clearing a key procedural hurdle in a move ahead of the state assembly polls.
With the Cabinet’s approval, the President of India will now initiate the constitutional process by referring the proposed Kerala (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2026 to the Kerala Legislative Assembly for its views, in accordance with Article 3 of the Constitution.
Once the state Assembly’s opinion is received, the Centre will take further steps to introduce the Bill in Parliament after obtaining the President’s recommendation.
The Kerala Legislative Assembly had unanimously adopted a resolution on June 24, 2024, urging the Centre to amend the First Schedule of the Constitution to reflect the state’s name as ‘Keralam’, which is how it is referred to in the Malayalam language.
The resolution noted that the state was formed on linguistic lines on November 1, 1956, a date celebrated annually as Kerala Piravi Day, and argued that retaining the Malayalam name would better reflect the state’s cultural and linguistic identity.
Subsequently, the Kerala government formally requested the Union government to initiate the constitutional amendment process for the name change under Article 3, which empowers Parliament to alter the name of an existing state, subject to consultation with the concerned state legislature.
The proposal was examined by the Ministry of Home Affairs and received approval from Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The draft Cabinet note was also vetted by the Department of Legal Affairs and the Legislative Department under the Ministry of Law and Justice, both of which concurred with the proposal.
With the Cabinet’s nod now in place, the renaming process moves a step closer to completion, even as political attention sharpens ahead of the upcoming Kerala Assembly elections.
