The Indian National Congress (abbreviated INC, and commonly known as the Congress) is one of the two major

political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It is the largest and one of the oldest democraticallyoperating political parties in the world.[4][5][6] The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered centre-left wing in the Indian political spectrum as contrasted to the right-wing socio-religious ultra-nationalist-based Bharatiya Janata Party. Founded in 1885 by members of the occultist movement Theosophical Society Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji, Dinshaw Wacha, Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, Surendranath Banerjee, Monomohun Ghose, Mahadev Govind Ranade[7] and William Wedderburnthe Indian National Congress became a pivotal participant in the Indian Independence Movement, with over 15 million members and over 70 million participants in its struggle against British colonial rule in India. [8] After independence in 1947, it became the nation's dominant political party, led by the Nehru-Gandhi family for the most part; major challenges for party leadership have only recently formed.[8]

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, as a member of a coalition of political organisations called the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), was able to gain a majority and form the government. Contents

1 History 1.1 The pre-independence era 1.2 The post-independence era 1.2.1 Jawaharlal Nehru 1.3 K. Kamaraj 1.4 Indira Gandhi 1.5 The post-Indira era 2 Ideology and policies 2.1 Social policy 2.2 Economic policy 2.3 Foreign policy

3 Organisational Structure 4 Congress in Pradesh (States) 5 Congress in various states 5.1 List of current Congress/UPA Chief Ministers 6 Prime Ministers of the Republic from the Congress Party 7 Controversies and criticisms 7.1 1947: Anti-Godse riots 7.2 1975-1977: State of Emergency 7.3 1984: anti-Sikh riots 7.4 Bofors scandal 7.5 Charges of bidding for seats 7.6 Allegations of softness towards religious extremism and terrorism 7.7 2G spectrum scam 7.8 Bribes to Members of Parliament 7.9 Other charges of corruption 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links

History Main article: History of the Indian National Congress

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 ideologically divided into two groups, moderate and activist. The moderates were more educated and wanted to win people's faith to lead the nation to independence without fighting; the activists, on the other hand, favoured more revolutionary tactics and sought to make the INC a paramilitary group.[citation needed] The pre-independence era A.O. Hume one of the founders of the Indian National Congress First session of Indian National Congress, Bombay, 2831 December 1885.

The Congress was founded by Indian and British members of the Theosophical Society movement, most notably A.O. Hume.[8] It has been suggested that the idea was originally conceived in a private meeting of seventeen men after a Theosophical Convention held at Madras in December 1884. Hume took the initiative, and it was in March 1885 that the first notice was issued convening the first Indian National Union to meet at Poona the following December.[9]

Founded in 1885 claiming that it had the objective of obtaining a greater share in government for educated Indians was created to form a platform for civic and political dialogue of educated Indians with the British Raj. 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 Bonnerjee 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 the INC was held from 2831 December 1885, and was attended by 72 delegates.

Within a few years, the demands of the INC became more radical in the face of constant opposition from the government, and the party decided to advocate in favour of the independence movement, as it would allow for a new political system in which they could be a majorly dominant party. By 1907 the party was split into two halvesthe Garam Dal (literally "hot faction") of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, or Extremists, and the Naram Dal (literally "soft faction") of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, or Moderatesdistinguished by their attitude towards the British colonists. Under the

influence of Tilak, the Congress became the first organised independence group in the country, bringing together millions of people against the British.[8]

In the pre-independence era, the INC featured a number of prominent political figures: Dadabhai Naoroji, a member of the sister Indian National Association, elected president of the Congress in 1886, and between 1892 and 1895 the first Indian Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons; Bal Gangadhar Tilak; Bipin Chandra Pal; Lala Lajpat Rai; Gopal Krishna Gokhale; and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, later leader of the Muslim League and instrumental in the creation of Pakistan. 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 Swadeshi movement. Mohandas Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915 and with the help of the moderate group led by Ghokhale became president of the Congress and formed an alliance with the Khilafat movement. In protest a number of leadersChittaranjan Das, Annie Besant, Motilal Nehruresigned from the Congress to set up the Swaraj Party. The Khilafat movement collapsed and the Congress was split. Mahatma Gandhi, President of Congress party during 1924

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, Dr. Anugraha Narayan Sinha, Jayaprakash Narayan, Jivatram Kripalani and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. With the already existing nationalistic feeling combined with Gandhi's popularity, the Congress became a forceful and dominant group of people 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 just about 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 revolutionary group 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 sole representative of the Indian people as other parties were there as well notably the Hindu Mahasabha, Azad Hind Sarkar, and 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 the INC. 26 January 1930 was declared as "Poorna Swaraj Diwas", Independence Day, although the British would remain in India for 17 more years. To commemorate this date the Constitution of India was formally adopted on 26 January 1950, even though it had been 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 Mohandas K. 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 socialist groupings (including the Congress Socialist Party, Krishak Praja Party, and Swarajya Party members) were expelled by Gandhi along with Subhas Chandra Bose in 1939. 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 Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Congress Prime Minister of India (19471964).

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. [10] However, at the time of independence, the INC (led by Jawaharlal Nehru) was dominant in the Indian political environment and was established as the main political party. The Congress thus, considering the perceived need for a stable leadership and guiding vision after the confusion and problems during and following the Partition of India and independence, was re-established as an electoral party in

independent India. Across several general elections, the party ruled uninterruptedly until 1977, and has remained a major political force.[citation needed]

After the Gandhi's assassination in 1948, and the death of Sardar Patel in 1950, Jawaharlal Nehru was the sole remaining iconic national leader, and soon the situation became such that Nehru was key to the political potency and future of the Congress. Nehru embraced secularism, socialistic economic practices and a nonaligned foreign policy, which became the hallmark of the modern Congress Party. Nehru's policies targeted the more well-off, claiming to have thus improved the position of religious minorities and lower-caste Hindus. A generation of freedom fighting leaders was soon replaced by a generation of people who had grown up in the shadow of Nehru. Nehru led the Congress to consecutive majorities in the elections of 1952, 1957 and 1962.

After Nehru's death in 1964, the party's future first came into question. No other leader had Nehru's popular appeal, 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. K. Kamaraj

Toward the end of Nehru's life, K. Kamaraj was became the president of the All India Congress Committee and proposed the Kamaraj Plan. According to the plan six Congress chief ministers and six senior Cabinet ministers resigned to take up party work. After Nehru's death, Kamaraj was instrumental in bringing Lal Bahadur Shastri to power in 1964. He was part of a group of leaders in the Congress called "the syndicate". After Shastri's death, the syndicate favoured Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi over Morarji Desai and she became the prime minister of India in 1967. For his role in the two successions, Kamaraj was widely credited as the "kingmaker" in Indian politics. Kamaraj stepped down as AICC president in 1967. Indira Gandhi Indira Gandhi, thrice Prime Minister of India.

The first serious challenge to Congress hegemony came in 1967 when a new coalition, under the banner of the Samyukt Vidhayak Dal, won control over several

states in the Hindi belt. Indira Gandhi (not related to Mahatma 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 the Indian National Congress (Organisation) (INC(O)) led by Kamaraj. It was informally called the "Old Congress". As Indira Gandhi had control over the national state machinery, her faction was seen as the official INC by the Election Commission of India, although her party was a 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 gather popular support for the party. She raised slogans such as Garibi Hatao (Remove Poverty), and wanted to develop closer ties with the Soviet Union, for strategic purposes.[11] 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 authoritarian and autocratic in her policies and outlook. Following allegations of electoral malpractice in the general elections, a court overturned Gandhi's victory in her parliamentary constituency in thr 1971 General Elections. Facing growing criticism and widespread demonstrations by opposition in the country, she proclaimed a state of National Emergency in 1975, imprisoned most of her party's opposition, 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. Congress(I) was routed in the general elections by the Janata Party, but the resulting coalition government lasted only 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 the disastrous Operation Blue Star. In the following days anti-Sikh riots broke out in Delhi and elsewhere in which more than six thousand Sikhs were killed, purportedly by activists and leaders of the Congress Party.[12] The post-Indira era Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance and President of Indian National Congress

Following the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, the Indian National Congress party leaders nominated Rajiv Gandhi to be the next Prime Minister. He took office by storm, winning major election victory, and leading the Congress party by winning 411 seats out of 542, in the Indian Parliament. He helped improve the economic, foreign and security policies of the country, during his tenure.[citation needed]

Afterward, 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 to 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. Sonia Gandhi's autocratic era in power has been criticised by some, including the ultra-nationalist right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People's Party) and the ultra-left wing Communist Party of India (Marxist) as well as other, mostly affiliated, groups on the basis that she is a foreigner of Italian ethnicity.

Although the Congress expedited the downfall of the National Democratic Alliance (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 institutions 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. Ideology and policies This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2013)

Historically, the party has supported and advocated in favour of farmers, laborers, worker's unions (Labour unions), and religious and ethnic minorities; it has also

advocated in favour of the regulation of business and finance, and has looked favourably upon the levying of income taxes. However, in recent years the party has turned towards centrist economic and social democratic policies. Today, the INC advocates neo-liberal policies including populism, social liberalism, secularism and free enterprise with government regulations such as publicprivate partnership (PPP) model. As a political party, the INC has publicised its intentions to do all it can to reduce poverty, illiteracy and strongly supports the weaker section of the society. [citation needed] Social policy

Social policy of the INC is officially based upon the Gandhian principle of Sarvodaya (upliftment of all sections of the society.) In particular INC emphasises upon policies to improve the lives of the economically underprivillaged and socially disprivilleged sections of society. This includes publicising employment generation efforts for the rural population (through schemes such as National Rural Employment Generation Scheme) etc. The party supports the somewhat controversial concept of family planning with birth control but hasn't overtly supported elective abortion (i.e. Gender-Selective abortion)[citation needed], which would be controversial and dangerous as certain groups (e.g. Feminists) could consider that to be sexist or insensitive and the INC wouldn't have been able to survive under such pressure. The INC supports the highly controversial 'Reservation' system (i.e. reserving jobs and other things for underprivileged factions of society) which could lead to an inexperienced poorer person getting a job instead of an experienced wealthier person, though it could also be vice versa. Economic policy

Initially and for a long time, the economic policy of the INC was centred around the public sector and aimed at establishing a "socialistic pattern of society". However, after the recent adoption of Economically Liberal policies started by Manmohan Singh the then Finance Minister[citation needed] in the early 1990s, the economic policy of INC has been changed somewhat and it is now adopted free market policies, though at the same time it is in favour of taking a cautious approach when it comes to liberalising the economy claiming it is to help ensure that the weaker sectors aren't affected to hard by the changes that come with liberalisation.[citation needed] Foreign policy See also: Foreign relations of India

Traditionally, nonalignment has been the bedrock of the foreign policy of the INC. [citation needed] Organisational Structure

The organisational structure created by Mohandas Gandhi's re-arrangement 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 (PCC), which is the state-level 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 1015 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 (AICC) 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 a result of conditional circumstances.

The Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) 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 Congress Members of the Legislative Assembly (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.