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List of national presidents of the Indian National Congress

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The national president of the Indian National Congress is the chief executive of the Indian National Congress (INC), one of the principal political parties in India.[1] Constitutionally, the president is elected by an electoral college composed of members drawn from the Pradesh Congress Committees and members of the All India Congress Committee (AICC).[2] In the event of any emergency because of any cause such as the death or resignation of the president elected as above, the most senior general secretary discharges the routine functions of the president until the Working Committee appoints a provisional president pending the election of a regular president by the AICC.[2] The president of the party has effectively been the party's national leader, head of the party's organisation, head of the Working Committee, the chief spokesman, and all chief Congress committees.[3]

National President of the Indian National Congress
since 26 October 2022 (2022-10-26)
Residence24 Akbar Road, New Delhi
AppointerCommittee consisting of members of the Indian National Congress from the National and State Committees
Term lengthno term limit
Constituting instrumentConstitution of the Indian National Congress[1]
PrecursorSonia Gandhi
Formation28 December 1885 (1885-12-28)
First holderWomesh Chandra Bonnerjee (1885–1886)
WebsiteOfficial website

After the party's foundation in December 1885, Womesh Chandra Banerjee became its first president. From 1885 to 1933, the presidency had a term of one year only. From 1933 onwards, there was no such fixed term for the president.[4] During Jawaharlal Nehru's premiership, he rarely held the Presidency of INC, even though he was always head of the Parliamentary Party. Despite being a party with a structure, Congress under Indira Gandhi did not hold any organisational elections after 1978.[5] In 1978, Gandhi split from the INC and formed a new opposition party, popularly called Congress (I), which the national election commission declared to be the real Indian National Congress for the 1980 general election.[6][7][8] Gandhi institutionalised the practice of having the same person as the Congress president and the prime minister of India after the formation of Congress (I).[9] Her successors Rajiv Gandhi and P. V. Narasimha Rao also continued that practice. Nonetheless, in 2004, when the Congress was voted back into power, Manmohan Singh became the first and only prime minister not to be the president of the party since establishment of the practice of the president holding both positions.[10]

A total of 61 people have served as the president of the Indian National Congress since its formation.[11] Sonia Gandhi is the longest serving president of the party, having held the office for over twenty years from 1998 to 2017 and from 2019 to 2022. The latest election of president was held on 17 October 2022,[12] in which Mallikarjun Kharge became the new president defeating Shashi Tharoor in the 2022 Indian National Congress presidential election.[13]

List of party presidents during the founding years (1885–1900)

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List of presidents during 1885–1900
No. Year(s) of presidency Leader Portrait Place of conference Reference(s)[14]
1 December 1885 Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee   Bombay [15]
[16]
[17]
2 December 1886 Dadabhai Naoroji   Calcutta [18]
3 December 1887 Badruddin Tyabji   Madras [19]
[20]
4 December 1888 George Yule   Allahabad [21]
5 December 1889 William Wedderburn   Bombay [22]
6 December 1890 Pherozeshah Mehta   Calcutta [22]
7 December 1891 Panapakkam Anandacharlu   Nagpur [23]
8 December 1892 Womesh Chandra Banerjee   Allahabad [15]
[16]
[17]
9 December 1893 Dadabhai Naoroji   Lahore [18]
10 December 1894 Alfred Webb   Madras [22]
11 December 1895 Surendranath Banerjee   Poona [22]
12 December 1896 Rahimtulla M. Sayani   Calcutta [22]
13 December 1897 C. Sankaran Nair   Amaravati [24]
14 December 1898 Anandamohan Bose   Madras [24]
15 December 1899 Romesh Chunder Dutt   Lucknow [24]
16 December 1900 N. G. Chandavarkar   Lahore [24]

The pre-independence era (1901–1947)

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List of presidents during 1901–1947
No. Year(s) of presidency Name Portrait Place of conference Reference(s)[14]
17 December 1901 Dinshaw Edulji Wacha   Calcutta [25]
18 December 1902 Surendranath Banerjee   Ahmedabad [22]
19 December 1903 Lalmohan Ghosh Madras [23]
20 December 1904 Henry John Stedman Cotton   Bombay [26]
21 December 1905 Gopal Krishna Gokhale   Benares [23]
22 December 1906 Dadabhai Naoroji   Calcutta [18]
23 December 1907 Rashbihari Ghosh   Surat [23]
24 December 1908 Madras [23]
25 December 1909 Madan Mohan Malaviya   Lahore [23]
26 December 1910 William Wedderburn   Allahabad [22]
27 December 1911 Bishan Narayan Dar Calcutta [23]
28 December 1912 Raghunath Narasinha Mudholkar   Bankipore [23]
29 December 1913 Nawab Syed Muhammad Bahadur Karachi [23]
30 April 1914 Bhupendra Nath Bose   Madras [23]
31 December 1915 Satyendra Prasanno Sinha   Bombay [24]
32 December 1916 Ambica Charan Mazumdar   Lucknow [24]
33 December 1917 Annie Besant   Calcutta [24]
34 August 1918 Syed Hasan Imam   Bombay (special session) [24]
35 December 1918 Madan Mohan Malaviya   Delhi [23]
36 December 1919 Motilal Nehru   Amritsar [24]
37 1920 Lala Lajpat Rai   Calcutta (Special Session) [24]
38 December 1920 C. Vijayaraghavachariar   Nagpur [27]
39 December 1921 Hakim Ajmal Khan   Ahmedabad [27]
40 December 1922 Chittaranjan Das   Gaya [27]
41 1923 Mohammad Ali Jauhar   Kakinada [27]
42 September 1923 Abul Kalam Azad   Delhi (Special Session) [27]
43 December 1924 Mahatma Gandhi   Belgaum [28]
44 April 1925 Sarojini Naidu   Kanpur [27]
45 December 1926 S. Srinivasa Iyengar   Guwahati [27]
46 December 1927 Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari   Madras [27]
47 1928 Motilal Nehru   Calcutta [24]
48 1929 Jawaharlal Nehru   Lahore [27]
49 1930 Karachi [27]
50 1931 Vallabhbhai Patel   Karachi [27]
51 1932 Madan Mohan Malaviya   Delhi [23]
52 1933 Nellie Sengupta   Calcutta [29]
53 1934 Rajendra Prasad   Bombay [30]
54 1935 Lucknow [30]
55 1936 Jawaharlal Nehru   Lucknow [27]
56 1937 Faizpur [27]
57 1938 Subhas Chandra Bose   Haripura [28]
[31]
58 1939 Tewar, Madhya Pradesh
(then Tripuri) 		[28]
[31]
59 1939 (March) Rajendra Prasad   Tewar, Madhya Pradesh
(then Tripuri) 		[30]
60 1940–46

Duration of World war 2

Abul Kalam Azad   Ramgarh [27]
61 1946 (July–Sept) Jawaharlal Nehru   [32]
62 1946 J. B. Kripalani   Meerut [33]
63 1947

The post-independence era (1948–present)

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List of presidents since independence
No. Year(s) of Presidency Name Portrait Place of Conference Reference(s)[14]
64 1948 Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya   Jaipur [33]
65 1949 Jaipur
66 1950 Purushottam Das Tandon   Nashik [33]
67 1951 Jawaharlal Nehru   Delhi [34]
[31]
68 1952 Delhi
69 1953 Hyderabad [34]
[31]
70 1954 Kalyani [34]
[31]
71 1955 U. N. Dhebar   Avadi [23]
72 1956 Amritsar [23]
73 1957 Indore [23]
74 1958 Gauhati [23]
75 1959 Nagpur [23]
76 1959 Indira Gandhi   Delhi (special session) [35]
[36]
73 1960 Neelam Sanjiva Reddy   Bengaluru [33]
74 1961 Bhavnagar [33]
75 1962–1963 Patna [33]
76 1964 K. Kamaraj   Bhubaneswar [33]
77 1965 Durgapur [33]
78 1966–1967 Jaipur [33]
79 1968 S. Nijalingappa   Hyderabad [33]
80 1969 Faridabad [33]
81 1970–1971 Jagjivan Ram   Mumbai [33]
82 1972–74 Shankar Dayal Sharma   Kolkata [33]
83 1975–77 Devakanta Barua   Chandigarh [33]
84 1977–78 Kasu Brahmananda Reddy   Chandigarh [37]
85 1978–83 Indira Gandhi   New Delhi [35]
[36]
85 1983 Kolkata [35]
[36]
86 1985–1991 Rajiv Gandhi   Mumbai [38]
[39]
[40]
87 1992 P. V. Narasimha Rao   Tirupati [23]
88 1993 Surajkund [23]
89 1994 Delhi [23]
90 1996–1998 Sitaram Kesri   Kolkata [23]
91 1998–2001 Sonia Gandhi   New Delhi [41]
[42]
92 2001–2004 Bengaluru [41]
[42]
93 2004–2006 New Delhi [41]
[42]
94 2006–2010 Hyderabad [41]
[42]
95 2010–2017 New Delhi [41]
[42]
96 2017–2019 Rahul Gandhi   New Delhi [43]
97 2019–2022 Sonia Gandhi   Jaipur [41]
[42]
98 2022–Incumbent Mallikarjun Kharge   New Delhi [44]

See also

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References

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  2. ^ a b C G, Manoj (3 February 2021). "Explained: a Congress president – how these polls are meant to be held, how it plays out". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 5 March 2021. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
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  21. ^ Hall, Catherine; Sonya O. Rose (2006). At Home with the Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World. Cambridge University Press. p. 281. ISBN 978-1-139-46009-5. Archived from the original on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
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  32. ^ "Indian National Congress: From 1885 till 2017, a brief history of past presidents". The Indian Express. 4 December 2017. Retrieved 21 January 2024.
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  37. ^ "Congress President Elections: History of Six Congress Elections". 16 October 2022.
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