Since around the mid-1940s, the demand for the transfer of Agastheeswaram, Thovala, Kalkulam and Vilavancode taluks from the princely State of Travancore and then Travancore-Cochin to the Madras Presidency got crystallised with the birth of the All Travancore Tamilar Congress in 1945 and the Travancore Tamil Nadu Congress in 1947.
