reached between Telangana leaders and Andhra leaders on 20 February 1956 to merge Telangana and Andhra with promises to safeguard Telangana's interests. Popular newspaper in Telangana, Golconda Patrika, in its editorial on 8 March 1956, immediately after Nehru public declaration about the merger, expressing doubts about the Gentleman's agreement said "Andhra older brother might say any number of sweet things now, but they have to be committed to their promises and they should not exploit Telangana younger brother in future." Following the Gentlemen's agreement, the central government established a unified Andhra Pradesh on 1 November 1956. There have been several movements to invalidate the merger of Telangana and Andhra, major ones occurring in 1969, 1972 and 2000s onwards. The Telangana movement gained momentum over decades becoming a widespread political demand of creating a new state from the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh. In early 2014, the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 was approved by the Indian parliament, and Telangana became India's 29th state on 2 June 2014. Punjabi Suba The Akali Dal, a Sikh-dominated political party active only in Punjab, sought to create a Punjabi Suba (a Punjabi-majority) province. This new state would be a Sikh-majority state, which caused concern among the Punjabi Hindus. The Sikh leaders such Fateh Singh tactically stressed the linguistic basis of the demand, while downplaying its religious basis — a state where the distinct Sikh identity could be preserved. The States Reorganisation Commission rejected the demand for a Punjabi-majority state saying that it lacked a majority support and that Punjabi was not grammatically very distinct from Hindi. The Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU) was merged with Punjab, though. Akali Dal continued its movement, and in 1966 the Punjab Reorganisation Act split Punjab into the Sikh-majority Punjab state and the Hindu-majority states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, with Chandigarh, administered as a separate union territory, as the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana states. Belagavi After India became independent in 1947, the Belagavi district (Belgaum) of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency was retained by the Marathi dominated Bombay State. The award of the Belagavi district to the Kannada-majority Mysore State (later Karnataka) was contested by the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, which wanted it to be included in the proposed Marathi-majority Maharashtra state. External links Lok Sabha Discussion on States Reorganisation Commission https://eparlib.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/55931/1/lsd_01_11_09-12-1955.pdf Page 36 https://eparlib.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/55796/1/lsd_01_11_14-12-1955.pdf page 38 https://eparlib.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/55799/1/lsd_01_11_15-12-1955.pdf page 43 https://eparlib.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/56096/1/lsd_01_11_16-12-1955.pdf page 50 https://eparlib.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/55783/1/lsd_01_11_17-12-1955.pdf page 16