The Visalandhra, Vishalandhra or Vishal Andhra was a movement in post-independence India for a united state for all Telugu speakers, a Greater Andhra. This movement was led by the Communist Party of India under the banner of Andhra Mahasabha with a demand to merge all the Telugu-speaking areas into one state.[citation needed] (The Communist Party of India demanded for the formation of similar linguistic states across India.) The movement succeeded and a separate state of Andhra Pradesh was formed by merging Telugu-speaking areas of Hyderabad State (Telangana) with Andhra State on 1 November 1956 as part of the States Reorganisation Act. (Andhra State had been previously carved out of Madras State on 1 October 1953.) However, on 2 June 2014, Telangana State was separated back out of Andhra Pradesh and the Vishalandhra experiment came to an end. The residual Andhra Pradesh now has approximately the same borders as the old Andhra State of 1956.
