List of presidents of the Indian National Congress

Home Page | List of presidents of the Indian National Congress

The President of the Indian National Congress is the chief executive of the Indian National Congress (INC), one of the principal political parties in India, founded by retired British civil servant Allan Octavian Hume. 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). 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. 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.

President of the Indian National Congress
Incumbent
Mallikarjun Kharge
since 26 October 2022 (2022-10-26)
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
PrecursorSonia Gandhi (interim)
Rahul Gandhi
Formation28 December 1885 (1885-12-28)
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. 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. 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. 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). 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.

A total of 61 people have served as the president of the Indian National Congress since its formation. 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, in which Mallikarjun Kharge became the new president defeating Shashi Tharoor in the 2022 Indian National Congress presidential election.

During the founding years (1885–1900)

List of presidents during 1885–1900
No. Year(s) of presidency Leader Portrait Place of conference Reference(s)
1 December 1885 Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee Bombay

2 December 1886 Dadabhai Naoroji Calcutta
3 December 1887 Badruddin Tyabji Madras
4 December 1888 George Yule Allahabad
5 December 1889 William Wedderburn Bombay
6 December 1890 Pherozeshah Mehta Calcutta
7 December 1891 Panapakkam Anandacharlu Nagpur
8 December 1892 Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee Allahabad

9 December 1893 Dadabhai Naoroji Lahore
10 December 1894 Alfred Webb Madras
11 December 1895 Surendranath Banerjee Poona
12 December 1896 Rahimtulla M. Sayani Calcutta
13 December 1897 C. Sankaran Nair Amaravati
14 December 1898 Anandamohan Bose Madras
15 December 1899 Romesh Chunder Dutt Lucknow
16 December 1900 N. G. Chandavarkar Lahore

List of party presidents during the pre-independence era (1901–1947)

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

Duration of World war 2

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

List of party presidents during the post-independence era (1948–present)

List of presidents since independence
No. Year(s) of Presidency Name Portrait Place of Conference Reference(s)
64 1948 Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya Jaipur
65 1949 Jaipur
66 1950 Purushottam Das Tandon Nashik
67 1951 Jawaharlal Nehru New Delhi
68 1952 New Delhi
69 1953 Hyderabad
70 1954 Kalyani
71 1955 U. N. Dhebar Avadi
72 1956 Amritsar
73 1957 Indore
74 1958 Guwahati
75 1959 Nagpur
76 1959 Indira Gandhi Delhi (special session)
73 1960 Neelam Sanjiva Reddy Bengaluru
74 1961 Bhavnagar
75 1962 Damodaram Sanjivayya Patna
75 1962–1963 Neelam Sanjiva Reddy Patna
76 1964 K. Kamaraj Bhubaneswar
77 1965 Durgapur
78 1966–1967 Jaipur
79 1968 S. Nijalingappa Hyderabad
80 1969 Faridabad
81 1970–1971 Jagjivan Ram Mumbai
82 1972–74 Shankar Dayal Sharma Kolkata
83 1975–77 D. K. Barooah Chandigarh
84 1977–78 Kasu Brahmananda Reddy Chandigarh
85 1978–83 Indira Gandhi New Delhi
85 1983 Kolkata
86 1985–1991 Rajiv Gandhi Mumbai

87 1992 P. V. Narasimha Rao Tirupati
88 1993 Surajkund
89 1994 Delhi
90 1996–1998 Sitaram Kesri Kolkata
91 1998–2001 Sonia Gandhi New Delhi
92 2001–2004 Bengaluru
93 2004–2006 New Delhi
94 2006–2010 Hyderabad
95 2010–2017 New Delhi
96 2017–2019 Rahul Gandhi New Delhi
97 2019–2022 Sonia Gandhi Jaipur
98 2022–Incumbent Mallikarjun Kharge New Delhi

Working & Vice Presidents

  • Kamalapati Tripathi (1980–88, working)
  • Arjun Singh (1984–89)
  • Jitendra Prasada (1999–2001)
  • Rahul Gandhi (2013–17)

See also

wikipedia, wiki, encyclopedia, book, library, article, read, free download, Information about List of presidents of the Indian National Congress, What is List of presidents of the Indian National Congress? What does List of presidents of the Indian National Congress mean?

Home Page | Go up