In its very first meeting at the new PMO in Seva Teerth, the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today cleared a proposal to rename Kerala as Keralam, the development coming ahead of the Assembly elections in the state.Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw made the announcement regarding the first policy decision from Seva Teerth where the PMO moved on February 13 after vacating the British-era South Block.Asked to comment on the timing of renaming, Vaishnaw said the approval of the Cabinet was “time-agnostic”. “We have in the past approved several development and infrastructure agendas for Kerala notwithstanding election cycles. Elections will keep happening. The Cabinet will decide on issues based on citizen and national interests,” he said to queries about a related 2024 proposal of the Kerala Assembly to rename the state not finding favour with the Ministry of Home Affairs.The minister did not yet delineate the time it would take to complete legislative requirements to rename Kerala.Now that the Cabinet has granted its approval to the matter, the Centre will draft The Kerala (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2026, and send it to President Droupadi Murmu for reference to the State Legislative Assembly of Kerala. Under the Constitution, the state Assembly will need to express its views on the Bill as provided under Article 3. Once those views are received, the Centre will obtain a recommendation from the President to introduce the Bill in Parliament for the purpose of altering Kerala’s name to Keralam.The Bill will eventually amend Article 3 of the Constitution and enable changing the state’s name in the First Schedule of the Constitution. An earlier attempt to propose the renaming of Kerala was made when the state Assembly passed a resolution on June 24, 2024, urging the Centre to call Kerala as Keralam.That resolution read, “The name of our state is Keralam in the Malayalam language. States were formed on the basis of language on the first day of November 1956. The Kerala Piravi (birth) Day is also on the first day of November. Since the time of national Independence struggle, there has been a strong demand for the formation of united Kerala for the people speaking Malayalam. But in the First Schedule to the Constitution, the name of our state is recorded as ‘Kerala’. This Assembly unanimously appeals to the Central Government to take urgent steps as per Article 3 of the Constitution for modifying the name as ‘Keralam’.”Article 3 of the Constitution provides for alteration of names of the existing states. This article says that Parliament may by law alter the name of any state and adds, “No Bill for the purpose shall be introduced in either House of Parliament except on the recommendation of the President and unless, where the proposal contained in the Bill affects the area, boundaries or name of any of the states, the Bill has been referred by the President to the legislature of that state for expressing its views thereon within such period as may be specified in the reference or within such further period as the President may allow and the period so specified or allowed has expired.”A Cabinet statement today said the matter regarding the alteration of Kerala’s name was considered in the Ministry of Home Affairs and the draft note for the Cabinet to alter the name was circulated to the Law Ministry for comments. “The Ministry of Law and Justice has concurred with the proposal for the alteration of the name of state of ‘Kerala’ as ‘Keralam’,” the Cabinet said.