List of state and union territory capitals in India
India is a country located in southern Asia. With over 1.3 billion people, India is the most populous democracy in the world. It is a federal constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system consisting of 29
states and 7 union territories. All states, as well as the union territories of Puducherry and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, have elected legislatures and governments, both patterned on the Westminster model. The remaining five union territories are directly ruled by the centre through appointed administrators. In 1956, under the States Reorganisation Act, states were reorganised on a linguistic basis. Since then, their structure has remained largely unchanged. Each state or union territory is further divided into administrative districts..
Birender Singh (politician, born 1921)
When India became independent in 1947, the old province of Punjab was partitioned and East Punjab was retained by India. Several Princely states located on the plains of East Punjab were merged to create the state of PEPSU. Several other princely states in the hills of East Punjab were similarly merged to create the Chief Commissioners' Province of Himachal. The portion which had been directly ruled by the British (rather than by the Maharajas of various princely states) became a third, separate state and received the name Punjab. The Ahirwal region and Rewari lay within this state of Punjab (India), and Birendra Singh was a minister in this state. In the period 1956-66, the three political entities described above were merged and de-merged so that finally, in 1966, the political map of the region as it stands today emerged.
The final step in this process of re-organization was the separation of the Hindi-speaking areas of Punjab into the new state of Haryana, and the creation of the Union Territory of Chandigarh to serve as the common capital of both states. This was accomplished after some acrimony and political maneuvering. Rao Birendra Singh played a prominent role in this process of division. He did so because Ahirwal/Rewari was a Hindi-speaking area in the near vicinity of Delhi and he felt that the Hindi-speaking people of undivided Punjab were not getting their just due in the political dispensation. Therefore, beginning 1962, he spearheaded the campaign for division and achieved success when the state of Haryana was born in November 1966.