Telangana
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Telangana region marked in white. |
Telangana or
Telingana is an
unofficial region in the
Indian state of
Andhra Pradesh. It includes the northwestern interior districts of
Khammam,
Mahbubnagar,
Nalgonda,
Rangareddi,
Warangal,
Karimnagar,
Nizamabad,
Adilabad,
Medak, and the state capital,
Hyderabad. The region lies on the
Deccan plateau to the west of the
Eastern Ghats range. The
Krishna and
Godavari rivers flow through the region from west to east.
The region was ruled by the Hindu
Satavahana dynasty in the 3rd century. During their rule, the
Kakatiya temple was constructed, which is famous for 1000 pillars. The
Kakatiya kings of
Warangal ruled in the 12th-14th centuries. This was followed by a succession of
Muslim rulers: the
Bahmani sultans, the
Qutb Shahi sultans of
Golconda, the
Mughals, and finally the
Nizam or
Asaf Jahis of Hyderabad. Telangana was formerly part of the
Hyderabad State and was added to
Andhra Pradesh in
1956 on linguistic grounds following the
States Reorganization Act.
There is an active political group in Telangana that is seeking to secede the region from Andhra Pradesh to form a separate state, arguing that the underdevelopment of Telangana resulted from Andhra Pradesh being too big a state to govern effectively. In addition, they argue that the state government focuses on the more prosperous region of
Coastal Andhra to the east. The
Telangana Rashtra Samithi, a
political party which advocates for a separate Telangana state, became part of the ruling coalition of Andhra Pradesh after the 2004 state legislative elections. However, due to lack of enough public support, the Party failed to have any success so far in achieving separate statehood for Telangana. In the 2006 Municipal elections, people of Telangana rejected the Party as it became clear that the separate statehood movement was created by some self interested politicians only as a means to attain higher power.
*
Kosta/Coastal Andhra*
Rayalaseema
