The Rediff Special /Anand Gaundalkar
Congress saw only three presidential polls in its 112-year history
In the Congress's 112-year history, elections for the party presidency were held only on three occasions. In all these instances there were splits in the oldest party in the country.
As can be seen from the table given below, the elections
were held in 1939, 1950 and 1977. On each occasion, the winner was not acceptable to the party leadership and was forced to resign within a year of his election.
Year Venue Winners Losers Remarks
1939 Tripura Subhas Pattabhi Due to strong
Chandra Bose Sitaramayya opposition from
the Mahatma, Bose was
forced to resign
and Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad
replaced him as president.
1950 Nashik Purshottamdas Acharya Refusing to
Tandon Kripalani accept Jawaharlal
Nehru's
interference in
party matters,
Tandon resigned.
Nehru then held the party
chief's post.
1977 Delhi K Brahmananda Siddhartha There was a
Reddy Shankar vertical split in
Ray the Congress with
the formation of
the Indira Congress &
Reddy Congress.
After Reddy quit
the post, Indira
Gandhi was
elected party
president
in 1978.
Will next week's poll, the first in twenty years, split the Congress and change its leader?
As many as 8,000 delegates spread across the country will elect the Congress president. One-fourth of these votes come from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. If the delegates from Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are added, the tally goes up to 50 per cent of the votes.
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