The
Indian National Congress (also known as the
Congress, and abbreviated INC) is
a major political party in India
.
Founded in 1885 by
Allan Octavian
Hume,
Dadabhai Naoroji,
Dinshaw Wacha,
Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee,
Surendranath Banerjee,
Monomohun Ghose, and
William Wedderburn, the Indian National
Congress became the leader of the
Indian Independence Movement,
with over 15 million members and over 70 million participants in
its struggle against
British rule in
India. After independence in 1947, it became the nation's dominant
political party, led by the
Nehru-Gandhi family for most of the
part, challenged for leadership only recently.
In the
2009 general
elections, the Congress emerged as the single largest party in
the
Lok Sabha, with 206 of its candidates
getting elected to the 543-member house. Consequently, it along
with a coalition of allies called the
United Progressive Alliance
(UPA), was able to gain a majority and form the government.
History
The history of the Indian National Congress falls into two distinct
eras:
- The pre-independence era, when the party was at the forefront
of the struggle for independence and was instrumental in the whole
of India;
- The post-independence era, when the party has enjoyed a
prominent place in Indian politics, ruling the country for 48 of
the 60 years since independence in 1947.
In the pre-independence era, the congress was divided in two
groups, moderate and activist. The moderates were more educated and
wanted to win people's faith to lead the nation to independence
without bloodshed.the activists however wanted to follow a
revolutionary path and make it a militant organization.
The pre-independence era
First session of Indian National Congress, Bombay, 28-31, December,
1885.
Founded in
1885 with the objective of obtaining a greater share in government
for educated Indians, the Indian National Congress was initially
not opposed to British
rule.
The Congress met once a year during December.
Indeed, it was a
Scotsman
, Allan Octavian Hume, who brought about
its first meeting in Bombay
, with the
approval of
Lord Dufferin, the then-Viceroy.
Womesh Chandra Bannerjee
was the first President of the INC.
The first meeting was scheduled to be held
in Pune
, but due to a plague
outbreak there, the meeting was later shifted to Bombay. The
first Session of INC was held from 28-31 December 1885, and was
attended by 72 delegates.
A few years down the line, the demands of INC became more radical
in the face of constant opposition from the government, and the
party became very active in the
independence movement. By 1907
the party was split into two halves: the
Garam
Dal (literally "hot faction") of
Bal Gangadhar Tilak, or Extremists , and
the
Naram Dal (literally "soft faction") of
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, or Moderates ,
distinguished by their attitude towards the British. Under the
influence of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the Congress became the first
integrated mass organization in the country, bringing together
millions of people against the British. The Indian National
Congress was the only political party to provide harmony to all the
sects of the Indian society
In its time as the nation's leader in the freedom struggle, it
produced the nation's greatest leaders.
Before the Gandhi Era
came leaders like Bal Gangadhar
Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal,
Lala Lajpat Rai, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Mohammed Ali Jinnah (later leader of the
Muslim League and instrumental in the
creation of Pakistan
), all
starting with the first legendary icon of Indians: Dadabhai Naoroji, the president of the
sister Indian National
Association and later the first Indian Member of Parliament in the British House of
Commons
. The Congress was transformed into a mass
movement by
Surendranath
Banerjea and Sir
Henry
Cotton during the partition of Bengal in 1905 and the resultant
Swadesi Movement. Gandhi came back from South Africa in 1915 and
with the help of the pro-British group led by Ghokhale became the
President of The Congress and formed an alliance with the Khilafat
Movement. In protest a number of leaders went out of Congress.
Khilafat movement ended up in a disaster and The Congress was
split. A number of leaders
Chittaranjan
Das,
Annie Besant,
Motilal Nehru, went out of The Congress to set
up the Swaraj Party.
With the rise of
Mahatma Gandhi's
popularity and his
Satyagraha art of
revolution came
Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel,
Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru (the nation's first Prime Minister),
Dr. Rajendra Prasad (the nation's first
President),
Khan Mohammad Abbas
Khan,
Khan Abdul Ghaffar
Khan,
Chakravarti
Rajgopalachari,
Jivatram
Kripalani and
Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad. With the already existing nationalistic feeling
combined with Gandhi's popularity the Congress became a forceful
mass organization in the country, bringing together millions of
people by specifically working against caste differences,
untouchability, poverty, and religious and ethnic boundaries.
Although predominantly Hindu, it had members from virtually every
religion, ethnic group, economic class and linguistic group. In
1939,
Subhas Chandra Bose, the
elected president in both 1938 and 1939 was expelled from the
Congress for his socialist views and The Congress was reduced to a
pro-Business group financed by the business houses of Birla and
Bajaj. At the time of the
Quit India
movement, the Congress was undoubtedly the strongest political and
revolutionary organization in India, but the Congress disassociated
itself from the Quit India movement within a few days. The Indian
National Congress could not claim to be the true representative of
the Indian people as other parties were there as well particularly
the
Hindu Mahasabha,
Azad Hind Sarkar,
Forward
Bloc.
The 1929 Lahore session under the presidency of
Jawaharlal Nehru holds special significance
as in this session "Poorna Swaraj" (complete independence) was
declared as the goal of INC. The 26th January 1930 was declared as
"Poorna Swaraj Diwas," Independence Day although the British
remained in India a number of years longer. It was to commemorate
this date particularly that The Indian Constitution was formally
adopted on 26 January 1950 (even though it was passed on 26
November 1949).However in 1929 Srinivas Iyenger was expelled from
the Congress for demanding full independence, not just
home rule as demanded by Gandhi.
After the
First World War the party
became associated with
Mahatma
Gandhi, who remained its unofficial, spiritual leader and mass
icon even as younger men and women became party president. The
party was in many ways an umbrella organization, sheltering within
itself radical socialists, traditionalists and even Hindu and
Muslim conservatives, but all the socialists (including the
Congress Socialist Party, Krishak Praja Party, Swarajya Party
members) were expelled along with Subhas Chandra Bose in 1939 by
Gandhi.
Members of the Congress initially supported the sailors who led the
Royal Indian Navy Mutiny.
However they withdrew support at the critical juncture, when the
mutiny failed.
During the
INA trials of 1946, the
Congress helped to form the
INA
Defence Committee, which forcefully defended the case of the
soldiers of the
Azad Hind government. The
committee declared the formation of the Congress' defence team for
the INA and included famous lawyers of the time, including
Bhulabhai Desai,
Asaf
Ali, and
Jawaharlal
Nehru.
The Post-Independence Era
The party remained in power for thirty continuous years between
independence in 1947 and its first taste of electoral defeat (at
the national level) in 1977.
Jawaharlal Nehru
Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel are said to have held the view that
the INC was formed only for achieving independence and should have
been disbanded in 1947. However, at the time of independence, the
INC (led by
Jawaharlal Nehru) was a
major political organization in the country, and was established as
the major political party. The Congress thus, considering the
perceived need for a stable leadership and guiding vision after the
terrible chaos and confusion following the
Partition of India and Independence, was
re-established as an electoral party in independent India. Across
several general elections, the party ruled uninterrupted until
1977, and has remained a major political force.
After the murder of Gandhi in 1948, and the death of Sardar Patel
in 1950,
Jawaharlal Nehru was the
sole remaining iconic national leader, and soon the situation
became so that Nehru was key to the political potency and future of
the Congress. Nehru embraced secularism, socialist economic
policies and a non-aligned foreign policy, which became the
hallmark of the modern Congress Party. Nehru's policies challenged
the landed class, the business class and improved the position of
religious minorities and lower caste Hindus. A generation of
freedom fighting leaders were soon replaced by a generation of
people who had grown up in the shadow of Nehru. Nehru led the
Congress Party to consecutively majorities in the elections of
1952, 1957 and 1962.
After Nehru's death in 1964, the party's future first came into
question. No leader was competitive enough to touch Nehru's iconic
status, so the second-stage leadership mustered around the
compromise candidate, the gentle, soft-spoken and Nehruvian
Lal Bahadur Shastri. Shastri
remained Prime Minister till his own death in 1966, and a broad
Congress Party election opted for
Indira
Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, over the right-wing, conservative
Morarji Desai.
Indira Gandhi
The first serious challenge to Congress hegemony came in 1967 when
a united opposition, under the banner of
Samyukt Vidhayak Dal, won control over
several states in the
Hindi belt.
Indira Gandhi, the daughter of
Nehru, and Congress president, was then
challenged by the majority of the party leadership. The conflict
led to a split, and Indira launched a separate INC. Initially this
party was known as Congress (R), but it soon came to be generally
known as the
New Congress. The official party became known
as
Indian
National Congress led by
Kamaraj. It was
informally called the
Old Congress. As
Indira Priyadarshini had control over the
state machinery, her faction was recognized as the "real" INC by
the
Election Commission of
India, although her organization was the break-away
group.
The split can in some ways be seen as a left-wing/right-wing
division. Indira Gandhi wanted to use a populist agenda in order to
mobilize popular support for the party.
She raised slogans
such as Garibi Hatao (Remove Poverty), and wanted to
develop closer ties with the Soviet Union
. The regional party elites, who formed the
INC(O), stood for a more conservative agenda, and distrusted Soviet
help. INC(O) later merged into the
Janata
Party.
Gradually, Indira Gandhi grew more and more authoritarian.
Following allegations of widespread rigging in the general
elections, a court overturned Indira Gandhi's victory in the
Parliamentary constituency. Facing growing opposition she
proclaimed a state of
National
Emergency in 1975, curtailed the powers of the courts, and
unleashed a police state.
After she lifted the emergency in 1977, more Congress factions were
formed, the one remaining loyal to Indira Gandhi being popularly
known as Congress(I) with an 'I' for Indira. The Congress (I) was
routed in the general elections by the
Janata Party, but the coalition government fell
apart in two years. The Congress party returned to power in the
ensuing 1980 elections. In 1984
Indira
Gandhi was assassinated by two of her
Sikh
bodyguards, in revenge for
Operation
Blue Star.
In the following days more than six thousand
Sikhs were killed in the 1984 riots, mainly in Delhi
, by
activists and leaders of the Congress Party.
The Post-Indira era
Afterwards former treasurer
Sitaram
Kesri took over the reins of the party and oversaw the Congress
support to the
United Front governments
that ran from 1996–1998. During his tenure, several key leaders
broke away from the party, and serious infighting broke out among
those left. In 1998,
Sonia Gandhi
finally accepted the post of
Congress
President, in a move that may have saved the party from
extinction.
After her election as party leader, a section of the party, which
objected to the choice, broke away and formed the
Nationalist Congress Party. The
use of "Congress (I)" continues to denote the party run by Indira
Gandhi's successors. There have been repeated attempts by the
Indian nationalist groups (such as the
Bharatiya Janata Party) to discredit
Sonia Gandhi's leadership on the basis of her foreign origin - she
is Italian-born.
Although the Congress expedited the downfall of the NDA government
in 1999 by promising an alternative, Ms. Gandhi's decision was
followed by fresh elections and the Congress party's worst-ever
tally in the lower house. The party spent the interval period
forging alliances and overseeing changes in the state and central
organizations to revive the party. It has had many electoral
successes which led up to the formation of a Congress-led
government in 2004. In the next general election in 2009 which made
Manmohan Singh the Prime Minister once again, and Congress was the
first party to get 206 seats during a coalition era of
politics.
Indian Prime Ministers from the Congress Party
Controversies and criticisms
Since the
party has dominated the political landscape of India
for over a
century, there are many charges of corruption and similar charges
against it. Some examples are:
1947 - Anti-Godse riots
After the knowledge that the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, Nathuram
Godse, was a Maharashtrian Brahmin, some workers of the Congress
Party went on a rampage, against the supporters of Savarkar and
Nathuram Godse, burning their houses and putting thousands in
jail.
1975-1977 - State of Emergency
On 12 June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad declared Indira
Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha void on grounds of electoral
malpractice. But Mrs Gandhi rejected calls to resign and announced
plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Indira had already been accused of authoritarianism. By using her
strong parliamentary majority, her ruling Congress Party had
amended the Constitution and altered the balance of power between
the Centre and the States in favour of the Central Government. She
had twice imposed "President's Rule" under Article 356 of the
Constitution by declaring states ruled by opposition parties as
"lawless and chaotic", and thus seizing control. In response to her
new tendency for authoritarian use of power, public figures and
former freedom-fighters like Jaya Prakash Narayan, Satyendra
Narayan Sinha and Acharya Jivatram Kripalani toured India, speaking
actively against her and her government.
Gandhi moved to restore order by ordering the arrest of most of the
opposition participating in the unrest. Her Cabinet and government
then recommended that President
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declare a
state of emergency, because of the
disorder and lawlessness following the Allahabad High Court
decision. Accordingly, Ahmed declared a State of Emergency caused
by internal disorder, based on the provisions of
Article 352 of the Constitution, on 26 June
1975.It is one of the most controversial periods in the
history of independent
India.
1984 anti-Sikh riots
After the assassination of Indira Gandhi by 2 of her Sikh Body
Guards following
Operation
Bluestar, many Congress workers including
Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar were accused
of inciting and participating in Sikh riots.
Rajiv Gandhi's remarks
Then Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, son of Indira Gandhi,
made a statement at Boat Club in New Delhi on 19 November 1984, on
the birthday of Indira Gandhi, "Some riots took place in the
country following the murder of Indiraji. We know the people were
very angry and for a few days it seemed that India had been shaken.
But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth
around it does shake a little.".
Allegations of conspiracy and cover-ups
There are allegations that the government destroyed evidence and
shielded the guilty. The
Asian Age front
page story called the government actions "
the Mother of all
Cover-ups" There are allegations that the violence was led and
often perpetrated by Indian National Congress activists and
sympathizers during the riots. The government, then led by the
Congress, was widely criticized for doing very little at the time,
possibly acting as a conspirator. The conspiracy theory is
supported by the fact that voting lists were used to identify Sikh
families.
Volcker report
The Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) appointed by the United
Nations in its final report released on October 27, 2005 confirms
that documents state: 'Beneficiary: India: Congress Party' with an
entitlement of 4 million barrels of crude' and 'Beneficiary: India:
Singh Mr K. Natwar' with an entitlement of 4 million barrels'.
Natwar Singh was subsequently suspended from the party.
Allegations of the BJP
The opposition
Bharatiya Janata
Party has repeatedly accused the Congress Party and its allies
of being Pro-
Muslim, supporting
Sharia Laws and showing unnatural favouritism to the
Indian Muslim Community and
toleration, or even promotion of
Islamic
Conservatism and
Obscurantism.
The BJP and many Hindus have often accused Congress Party and their
Allies of being soft on
Islamic
Extremism,
Islamic
fundamentalism,
Islamic
terrorism and
Islamism by scrapping
Prevention of
Terrorist Activities Act immediately after it won the elections
in 2004, refusing
death penalty to
hard-core Islamic Terrorists like
Afzal
Guru,
Abdul Subhan Qureshi,
Safdar Nagori,
Ajmal Kasab and even trying to scrap the ban on
SIMI in order to
appease Indian Muslim Community. It has also been soft on Indian
Terrorist Groups like
Indian
Mujahideen which resulted in the resignation of then
Home Minister Shivraj
Patil in 2008.
Congress has been accused of deliberately fragmenting
Hindus while consolidating conservative Muslim votes
(by opposing the
Uniform Civil
Code and allowing Muslims a separate
personal code,
etc).
The
UPA and previous
Congress-led governments have been accused of
revising history textbooks
to present a Marxist bias, and whitewashing the record of
Atrocities committed by Muslim Emperors and Kings on Hindus
during
six-hundred years of
Islamic Rule over India and
during the
Partition of India in order to
"de-saffronize" textbooks and acquire Muslim votes.
Hindus
have often accused Congress of funding the Indian Muslim's Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca
and
subsidies for their religious schools (Madrassas) at the cost of the tax payer's
money. On one hand, Government of India provides
subsidy to Muslims to perform Hajj; on other hand, Government of
India bound them to fly through government airlines and also gets
subsidy from Saudi
Arabia
for services providing to Indian Muslims, whereas
Hindus claim they are accorded no similar privilege for their own
pilgrimages or religious schools by the Government of
India.
Many Hindus the accuse Congress Party and its allies of showing
"partial"
Secularism, in which only
Hindus are expected to be secular while Muslims and other
minorities remain free to practice exclusionary practices..
Charges for bidding for seats
In November 2008, senior Congress leader,
Margaret Alva, made a charge that congress
seats for the elections were up for
bidding
as opposed to a
meritocratic
appointment to run. The party responded to the charge by denying
such a claim, as well as dropping her as
general secretary of the party, the
Congress Working
Committee and the party's
Central Election Committee.
She was
also stripped of her charge of the congress party in Maharashtra
, Punjab
, Haryana
and Mizoram
. Congress spokesperson,
Shakeel Ahmad, added that "Congress president
Mrs Sonia Gandhi has taken the decision on the report submitted by
Mr AK Antony, chairperson of the Disciplinary Action Committee."
This followed an outburst by the son of the congress chairperson,
Rahul Gandhi, that "Democracy in political parties is non-existent
in India. You cannot enter unless you are well connected." In
response the recent allegations he said, "I had made some
recommendations to include some younger boys. I am not unhappy with
the distribution of tickets."
Formation of present Government of India
In the
2004 general
elections, the
Congress
alliance won the largest number of seats and got an assurance
of support from the Left Front upsetting the
Atal Behari Vajpayee-led
National Democratic
Alliance, which was variously forecast to win outright victory
or at least emerge as the largest alliance. Shortly thereafter,
Sonia Gandhi was nominated by the Congress-led
United Progressive Alliance to
be the next Prime Minister. But in what was described as
the
dropping of a political bombshell, Sonia Gandhi refused to
take the position based on her "inner voice". She backed eminent
economist, former Union Finance Minister
and senior Congress leader
Dr. Manmohan
Singh for the post of Prime Minister, and he was sworn-in as
Prime Minister on 22 May 2004.
Veerappa
Moily, the former Chief Minister of Karnataka, was named the
Honourable Minister for Law, Justice, and Company Affairs and was
appointed to be the All India Congress Committee's General
Secretary in charge of Andhra Pradesh.
Despite strong opposition from the
BJP , AIADMK
, SP ,RJD , LJP ,
TDP , CPI , CPIM ,
BSP the Indian National Congress won the elections again
in 2009 , the people gave their mandate to the Congress party and
it was the only party to achieve 206 seats in 20 years. The youth
supported the Congress under the leadership of
Rahul Gandhi. The Congress's popularity has
increased by 61 % during the elections.
Policies and programmes
Social policy
Social policy of the INC is based on Gandhian concept of Sarvodaya
(upliftment of all sections of the society.) In particular INC
gives special emphasis on the welfare of the economically and
socially disadvantaged sections of the society. This includes
"affirmative action" reservations for weaker sections of the
society in education and employment, emphasis on employment
generation for rural population (through schemes such as National
Rural Employment Generation Scheme) etc. The party supports birth
control and family planning but opposes elective abortion, in
particular sex selective abortions.
Economic policy
Traditionally, Economic policy of the INC emphasized on the
importance of the public sector aimed at establishing a
"socialistic pattern of society." However, since the economic
liberalizations initiated by Dr. Manmohan Singh, the then Finance
Minister in the early nineties of the last century, the economic
policy of INC has been changed somewhat and it is now committed to
liberalization and market economy, though at the same time it is in
favour of taking a cautious approach in proceeding with
liberalization to ensure that the weaker sections are not affected
too hard by the liberalization process.
Foreign policy
Traditionally, nonalignment has been the bedrock of the foreign
policy of the INC.
Internal organization
The organization developed by Mohandas Gandhi's reorganization of
the Congress in the years of 1918 to 1920 has largely been retained
till today.
In every Indian state and union territory or
pradesh,
there is a
Pradesh Congress
Committee, which is the provincial unit of the party,
responsible for directing political campaigns at local and state
levels and assisting the campaigns for Parliamentary
constituencies. Each PCC has a Working Committee of 10-15 key
members, and the state president is the leader of the state unit.
The Congressmen elected as members of the states legislative
assemblies form the Congress Legislature Parties in the various
state assemblies, and their chairperson is usually the party's
nominee for Chief Ministership.
The
All India Congress
Committee is formed of delegates sent from the PCCs around the
country. The delegates elect various Congress committees, including
the
Congress Working
Committee, which consists of senior party leaders and office
bearers, and takes all important executive and political
decisions.
The
President of the Indian National
Congress is in effect the party's national leader, head of the
organization, head of the Working Committee and all chief Congress
committees, chief spokesman and the Congress choice to become the
Prime Minister of
India.
Constitutionally, the president is to be elected by the vote of the
PCCs and members of the AICC. However, this procedure has often
been by-passed by the Working Committee, choosing to elect its own
candidate as an emergency measure.
The
Congress Parliamentary
Party is the group of elected MPs in the
Lok Sabha and
Rajya
Sabha.It is headed by senior Congress leader
Pranab Mukherjee. Since the current
Prime Minister Dr.
Manmohan Singh is not an elected member of
the Lok Sabha, Pranab is the CPP president. Dr.Singh is Leader of
the Rajya Sabha. There is also a CLP leader in each state. The
CLP(Congress Legislative Party) consists of all MLAs in each state.
It also comes under the CPP so Pranab is head of the MLAs also.In
cases of states where the Congress is single-handedly ruling the
government,the CLP leader is the
Chief
Minister.
Congress in various states
Congress ruled states marked in green
Congress
is currently in power in seven states (Andhra Pradesh
, Arunachal Pradesh
, Delhi
, Rajasthan
, Haryana
, Mizoram
and Manipur
) where the party enjoys a majority of its
own. In three other states — Assam
, Goa
and Maharashtra
— it shares power with other alliance
partners. In Tamil Nadu
, where it lost power in 1967 assembly election, is
not able to capture again since then. The party now
provides outside support to the ruling DMK there in return for DMK's
outside support for Congress in Puducherry
. In the remaining states and union
territories, various opposition parties are in power.
List of current Congress Chief Ministers
List of presidents of the party
| Name of President |
Life Span |
Year of Presidency |
Place of Conference |
| Womesh Chandra
Bonnerjee |
December 29, 1844- 1906 |
1885 |
Mumbai |
| Dadabhai Naoroji |
September 4, 1825- 1917 |
1886 |
Calcutta |
| Badruddin Tyabji |
October 10, 1844- 1906 |
1887 |
Madras |
| George Yule |
1829- 1892 |
1888 |
Allahabad |
| Sir William Wedderburn |
1838- 1918 |
1889 |
Mumbai |
| Sir Pherozeshah Mehta |
August 4, 1845- 1915 |
1890 |
Calcutta |
| P. Anandacharlu |
August 1843- 1908 |
1891 |
Nagpur |
| Womesh Chandra
Bonnerjee |
December 29, 1844- 1906 |
1892 |
Allahabad |
| Dadabhai Naoroji |
September 4, 1848- 1925 |
1893 |
Lahore |
| Alfred Webb |
1834- 1908 |
1894 |
Madras |
| Surendranath Banerjea |
November 10, 1848- 1925 |
1895 |
Pune |
| Rahimtulla M. Sayani |
April 5, 1847- 1902 |
1896 |
Calcutta |
| Sir C. Sankaran Nair |
July 11, 1857- 1934 |
1897 |
Amraoti |
| Ananda Mohan Bose |
September 23, 1847- 1906 |
1898 |
Madras |
| Romesh Chunder Dutt |
August 13, 1848- 1909 |
1899 |
Lucknow |
| Sir Narayan Ganesh
Chandavarkar |
December 2, 1855- 1923 |
1900 |
Lahore |
| Sir Dinshaw Edulji
Wacha |
August 2, 1844- 1936 |
1901 |
Calcutta |
| Surendranath Banerjea |
November 10, 1825- 1917 |
1902 |
Ahmedabad |
| Lalmohan Ghosh |
1848- 1909 |
1903 |
Madras |
| Sir Henry Cotton |
1845- 1915 |
1904 |
Mumbai |
| Gopal Krishna Gokhale |
May 9, 1866- 1915 |
1905 |
Benares |
| Dadabhai Naoroji |
September 4, 1825- 1917 |
1906 |
Calcutta |
| Rashbihari Ghosh |
December 23, 1845- 1921 |
1907 |
Surat |
| Rashbihari Ghosh |
December 23, 1845- 1921 |
1908 |
Madras |
| Pandit Madan Mohan
Malaviya |
December 25, 1861- 1946 |
1909 |
Lahore |
| Sir William Wedderburn |
1838- 1918 |
1910 |
Allahabad |
| Pandit Bishan Narayan
Dar |
1864- 1916 |
1911 |
Calcutta |
| Rao
Bahadur Raghunath Narasinha Mudholkar |
1857- 1921 |
1912 |
Bankipur |
| Nawab Syed Muhammad
Bahadur |
?- 1919 |
1913 |
Karachi |
| Bhupendra Nath Bose |
1859- 1924 |
1914 |
Madras |
| Lord
Satyendra Prasanna Sinha |
March 1863- 1928 |
1915 |
Mumbai |
| Ambica Charan
Mazumdar |
1850- 1922 |
1916 |
Lucknow |
| Annie Besant |
October 1, 1847- 1933 |
1917 |
Calcutta |
| Pandit Madan Mohan
Malaviya |
December 25, 1861- 1946 |
1918 |
Delhi |
| Syed Hasan Imam |
August 31, 1871- 1933 |
1918 |
Mumbai (Special
Session) |
| Pandit Motilal Nehru |
May 6, 1861- February 6, 1931 |
1919 |
Amritsar |
| Lala Lajpat Rai |
January 28, 1865- November 17, 1928 |
1920 |
Calcutta (Special Session) |
| C. Vijayaraghavachariar |
1852- April 19, 1944 |
1920 |
Nagpur |
| Hakim Ajmal Khan |
1863- December 29, 1927 |
1921 |
Ahmedabad |
| Deshbandhu Chittaranjan
Das |
November 5, 1870- June 16, 1925 |
1922 |
Gaya |
| Maulana Mohammad Ali |
December 10, 1878- January 4, 1931 |
1923 |
Kakinada |
| Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad |
1888- February 22, 1958 |
1923 |
Delhi (Special
Session) |
| Mahatma Gandhi |
October 2, 1869- January 30, 1948 |
1924 |
Belgaum |
| Sarojini Naidu |
February 13, 1879- March 2, 1949 |
1925 |
Kanpur |
| S. Srinivasa Iyengar |
September 11, 1874- May 19, 1941 |
1926 |
Gauhati |
| Dr. M A Ansari |
December 25, 1880- May 10, 1936 |
1927 |
Madras |
| Pandit Motilal Nehru |
May 6, 1861- February 6, 1931 |
1928 |
Calcutta |
| Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru |
November 14, 1889- May 27, 1964 |
1929 & 30 |
Lahore |
| Sardar Vallabhbhai
Patel |
October 31, 1875- December 15, 1950 |
1931 |
Karachi |
| Pandit Madan Mohan
Malaviya |
December 25, 1861- 1946 |
1932 |
Delhi |
| Pandit Madan Mohan
Malaviya |
December 25, 1861- 1946 |
1933 |
Calcutta |
| Nellie Sengupta |
1886- 1973 |
1933 |
Calcutta |
| Dr. Rajendra Prasad |
December 3, 1884- February 28, 1963 |
1934 & 35 |
Mumbai |
| Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru |
November 14, 1889- May 27, 1964 |
1936 |
Lucknow |
| Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru |
November 14, 1889- May 27, 1964 |
1936& 37 |
Faizpur |
| Netaji Subhash Chandra
Bose |
January 23, 1897- August 18, 1945? |
1938 |
Haripura |
| Netaji Subhash Chandra
Bose |
January 23, 1897- August 18, 1945? |
1939 |
Tripuri(Jabalpur ) |
| Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad |
1888- February 22, 1958 |
1940-46 |
Ramgarh |
| Acharya J.B. Kripalani |
1888- March 19, 1982 |
1947 |
Delhi |
| Dr Pattabhi
Sitaraimayya |
December 24, 1880- December 17, 1959 |
1948 & 49 |
Jaipur |
| Purushottam Das
Tandon |
August 1, 1882- July 1, 1961 |
1950 |
Nasik |
| Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru |
November 14, 1889- May 27, 1964 |
1951 & 52 |
Delhi |
| Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru |
November 14, 1889- May 27, 1964 |
1953 |
Hyderabad |
| Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru |
November 14, 1889- May 27, 1964 |
1954 |
Calcutta |
| U N Dhebar |
September 21, 1905- 1977 |
1955 |
Avadi |
| U N Dhebar |
September 21, 1905- 1977 |
1956 |
Amritsar |
| U N Dhebar |
September 21, 1905- 1977 |
1957 |
Indore |
| U N Dhebar |
September 21, 1905- 1977 |
1958 |
Gauhati |
| U N Dhebar |
September 21, 1905- 1977 |
1959 |
Nagpur |
| Indira Gandhi |
November 19, 1917- October 31, 1984 |
1959 |
Delhi |
| Neelam Sanjiva Reddy |
May 19, 1913- June 1, 1996 |
1960 |
Bangalore |
| Neelam Sanjiva Reddy |
May 19, 1913- June 1, 1996 |
1961 |
Bhavnagar |
| Neelam Sanjiva Reddy |
May 19, 1913- June 1, 1996 |
1962 & 63 |
Patna |
| K. Kamaraj |
July 15, 1903- October 2, 1975 |
1964 |
Bhubaneswar |
| K. Kamaraj |
July 15, 1903- October 2, 1975 |
1965 |
Durgapur |
| K. Kamaraj |
July 15, 1903- October 2, 1975 |
1966 & 67 |
Jaipur |
| S. Nijalingappa |
December 10, 1902- August 9, 2000 |
1968 |
Hyderabad |
| S. Nijalingappa |
December 10, 1902- August 9, 2000 |
1969 |
Faridabad |
| Jagjivan Ram |
April 5, 1908- July 6, 1986 |
1970 & 71 |
Mumbai |
| Dr Shankar Dayal
Sharma |
August 19, 1918- December 26, 1999 |
1972- 74 |
Calcutta |
| Dev Kant Baruah |
February 22, 1914- 1996 |
1975- 77 |
Chandigarh |
| Indira Gandhi |
November 19, 1917- October 31, 1984 |
1978- 83 |
Delhi |
| Indira Gandhi |
November 19, 1917- October 31, 1984 |
1983 -84 |
Calcutta |
| Rajiv Gandhi |
August 20, 1944- May 21, 1991 |
1985 -91 |
Mumbai |
| P. V. Narasimha Rao |
June 28, 1921- December 23, 2004 |
1992 -96 |
Tirupati |
| Sitaram Kesri |
November 1919- October 24, 2000 |
1997 -98 |
Kolkata |
| Sonia Gandhi |
December 9, 1946- |
1998-present |
Kolkata |
2009 general elections
The Indian National Congress-led coalition
United Progressive Alliance
(UPA), headed by Ms.
Sonia Gandhi, won
the plurality of votes in the
general elections of 2009 and
formed the government under the leadership of Dr.
Manmohan Singh.
See also
References
Bibliography
- Bipan Chandra, Amales Tripathi, Barun De. Freedom
Struggle. India: National Book Struggle. ISBN
81-237-0249-X.
Further reading
- The Indian National Congress: An Historical Sketch, by
Frederick Marion De Mello. Published by H. Milford, Oxford
university press, 1934.
- The Indian National Congress, by Hemendra Nath Das
Gupta. Published by J. K. Das Gupta, 1946.
- Indian National Congress: A Descriptive Bibliography of
India's Struggle for Freedom, by Jagdish Saran Sharma.
Published by S. Chand, 1959.
- Social Factors in the Birth and Growth of the Indian
National Congress Movement, by Ramparkash Dua. Published by S.
Chand, 1967.
- Split in a Predominant Party: The Indian National Congress
in 1969, by Mahendra Prasad Singh. Abhinav Publications, 1981.
ISBN 8170171407.
- Concise History of the Indian National Congress,
1885-1947, by B. N. Pande, Nisith Ranjan Ray, Ravinder Kumar,
Manmath Nath Das. Published by Vikas Pub. House, 1985. ISBN
0706930207.
- The Indian National Congress: An Analytical Biography,
by Om P. Gautam. Published by B.R. Pub. Corp., 1985.
- A Century of Indian National Congress, 1885-1985, by
Pran Nath Chopra, Ram Gopal, Moti Lal Bhargava. Published by Agam
Prakashan, 1986.
- The Congress Ideology and Programme, 1920-1985, by
Pitambar Datt Kaushik . Published by Gitanjali Pub. House, 1986.
ISBN 8185060169.
- Struggling and Ruling: The Indian National Congress,
1885-1985, by Jim Masselos. Published by Sterling Publishers,
1987.
- The Encyclopedia of Indian National Congress, by A.
Moin Zaidi, Shaheda Gufran Zaidi, Indian Institute of Applied
Political Research. Published by S.Chand, 1987.
- Indian National Congress: A Reconstruction, by Iqbal
Singh, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Published by Riverdale
Company, 1988. ISBN 0913215325.
- INC, the Glorious Tradition, by A. Moin Zaidi, Indian
National Congress. AICC. Published by Indian Institute of Applied
Political Research, 1989.
- Indian National Congress: A Select Bibliography, by
Manikrao Hodlya Gavit, Attar Chand. Published by U.D.H. Pub. House,
1989. ISBN 8185044058.
- The Story of Congress Pilgrimage: 1885-1985, by A.
Moin Zaidi, Indian National Congress. Published by Indian Institute
of Applied Political Research, 1990. ISBN 8185355460. (7 vols)
- Indian National Congress in England, by Harish P.
Kaushik. Published by Friends Publications, 1991.
- Women in Indian National Congress, 1921-1931, by Rajan
Mahan. Published by Rawat Publications, 1999.
- History of Indian National Congress, 1885-2002, by
Deep Chand Bandhu. Published by Kalpaz Publications, 2003. ISBN
8178350904.
External links