Khammam

Shitab Khan of Warangal

c. 1504–1516 CE

Short-lived Telugu principality of the chief Shitab Khan, or Sitapati, between the fall of the Bahmani power and the rise of Golconda. He was a former officer of the Bahmanis. By his pillar inscription, he took Warangal fort from the Muslims on 21 January 1504. He held it with Khammam, Bellamkonda and other hill forts, and restored the Kakatiya family goddess and a Krishna image to their temples. The Kistna manual thought him a vassal of the Gajapatis of Orissa, with whose prince he fought at Palanchinur. Sultan Quli Qutb Shah of Golconda took his forts. The sources date the conquest of Warangal anywhere from 1512 to 1525.

Shitab Khan (Sitapati) of Warangal

c. 1504–1516 CE

A Telugu chief of humble birth who held Warangal, Khammam and Bellamkonda in the early sixteenth century. Hirananda Sastri identified him with an officer who had fled the Bahmani Sultan Humayun Shah about 1461, and with the Sitapati of the Golconda chronicle. His pillar inscription in Warangal fort records that he took the fort from the Muslims on 21 January 1504. He put back the images of Krishna and of the Kakatiya family goddess. He supported Telugu poets and called himself king of the Bhogi family. Sultan Quli Qutb Shah of Golconda defeated him. He took shelter with the Gajapati prince at Kondapalli and fought on the losing side at Palanchinur. The Kistna manual thought he was a vassal of Orissa.

Salar Jung I (Mir Turab Ali Khan)

1853–1883 CE

Minister of Hyderabad for thirty years (1853–1883) and regent while Mahbub Ali Khan was a child. He was a great-grandson of the minister Mir Alam. He began in 1847 as talukdar (district officer) of districts in Telangana and became minister at twenty-four in 1853. He kept the Nizam's government on the British side in 1857. He reorganised the state: salaried revenue officers in place of revenue farmers, a revenue survey and settlement, civil and criminal courts, departments under four ministers (1868) and better finances. He died on 8 or 9 February 1883.

Jamalapuram Keshava Rao

1908–1953 CE

Hyderabad State Congress leader from Khammam district (1908–1953). He left a government clerk's post to join the State Congress, was jailed in the satyagraha of 1938–39 and again in the campaign for joining India in 1947–48, and was a member of its Action Committee. He was later nominated to the Constituent Assembly.

Komaragiri Narayana Rao

1915–1978 CE

Hyderabad State Congress worker from Khammam (1915–1978). He worked in the Andhra Mahasabha from 1930, joined the State Congress in 1938, and was jailed at Warangal for nine months in the Quit India movement of 1942–43. He later worked for land reform and the Bhoodan movement and wrote books in Telugu and English on Hyderabad.

D. Seshagiri Rao

before 1948 CE

Communist organiser of the coal-mine workers of Kothagudem, in Khammam district. He built a party unit and a miners' union there from the early 1940s, went underground in the Telangana struggle, escaped from police custody and joined the armed squads. He was betrayed, caught and shot by the Nizam's police in 1947–48, and the police kept his death secret for months.

J. Vengala Rao

Political leader of Andhra Pradesh. He was a member of the Andhra Pradesh assembly from 1962 to 1978, Home Minister of the state from 1969 to 1971 and Chief Minister from 1973 to 1978, the years after the Six-Point Formula. He was one of the leaders who met the Prime Minister during the Telangana agitation of 1969. Later he sat in the Lok Sabha for Khammam (1984–1991) and was Union Minister of Industries.