The Congress president's election: All you need to know about its history

As Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor battle it out, here is a concise history of the Congress party's presidency

The Indian National Congress (INC) will get a new president on October 19. The voting to elect the new president will take place on October 17. Mallikarjun Kharge or Dr Shashi Tharoor will be the next president of the INC. This will be the first time in over two decades that the party will have an elected president. In 2000, Sonia Gandhi defeated Jitendra Prasada to become the Congress president.

The Indian National Congress was founded by Allan Octavian Hume in 1885, a British administrator who had first-hand experience of the revolt in 1857 and wanted to prevent such occurrences in the future. Initially, the Congress started as a communication channel between the ruler and the ruled, namely the British Empire and the Indians. Hume's biographer noted, "And it is to limit and control them and direct them when there is yet time to do so… that this Congress movement was designed".

In 1919, Motilal Nehru became the president of the Congress. Mahatma Gandhi was a guiding force in the party. In 1928, at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress, Motilal was again elected president. The following year, at the 1929 session, his son Jawaharlal succeeded him as president. Contemporary chroniclers of politics like journalist Durga Das and later historians noted that Gandhi overlooked the provincial committees' recommendation that it should be Sardar Vallabhai Patel who should become the president. Jawaharlal's mother, Swarup Rani's impassioned plea that her son be given the job also worked in Jawaharlal's favour.

In later elections, too, provincial committees recommended Patel's name, but Gandhi stayed with Jawaharlal. Many argue that Gandhi saw the youthful Jawaharlal, with a modern outlook, a better person to lead the party. However, the seeds of dynastic succession in the Congress were laid then.

In 1959, the outgoing president of the Congress Party, UN Dhebar, suggested that Nehru's daughter Indira, the unofficial hostess and the PM's social secretary, become the president of the Congress. Indira had already been elected to the Congress Working Committee in 1955. At the Congress's Nagpur session, Indira succeeded Dhebar as the party president. Mahavir Tyagi, a firebrand Congress leader, wrote to Nehru about his daughter's elevation, decrying it. Nehru wrote back and said he was keeping a distance from "the whole business" but generally did not "think a daughter should become president of the party when I am prime minister". She was just 41.

Party elections came and went. The Congress split in 1969 after the party lost a clutch of elections. One faction, the Congress (Requisitionist), stayed with Indira. The other, the Congress (Organisation), later merged with the Janata Party. In the 1970s, the party changed its name and became Congress (Indira). The (I) was dropped in 1996.

During Indira Gandhi's prime ministership, the party saw different leaders becoming president. Her sons, Sanjay and Rajiv, were also pressed into the party's service. However, neither got the top job. But Congress presidents never really rebelled. They acted according to the directions of the other countervailing force in the party, the Congress Working Committee, which was an elected body.

The internal decision-making process in the Congress went through a profound shift after 1971. Indira Gandhi was beset by challengers from the states like Kamaraj, Ajoy Mukherjee and Morarji Desai. She directed the decision-making powers away from the states to the CWC.

In 1984, Indira Gandhi's assassination led to an election and a massive Congress majority. Kamalapati Tripathi, a veteran Congressman, had already been appointed executive president of the party by Indira Gandhi, though there is no such position in the party's constitution. Tensions rose between him and prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, fanned by supporters of the "old" and the "new" Congress. He resigned in 1986. Arjun Singh became the vice president of the party.

After the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in Sriperumbudur in 1991 and PV Narasimha Rao's ascendency as prime minister, elections were held in the party for both the Congress Working Committee and other posts. At the Tirupati session, Arjun Singh and Sharad Pawar received huge backing from the delegates. But Rao could see that if this trend continued, he would face many challenges from his colleagues. He announced that as the elections had failed to represent women, Dalits, and Adivasi leaders, all elected members should resign. He then nominated members to the CWC.

In September 1997, at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in Kolkata, Sitaram Kesri was party chief and faced leadership challenges from both Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot. Kesri won over 65 per cent of the votes, but the CWC elections saw Arjun Singh, Pawar, Ahmed Patel, and AK Antony winning by huge margins. The stage was set for a battle between the CWC and the party president – until Sonia Gandhi took over as party president in 1998.

Between 1998 and 2022, there has been no election to the CWC, which remains a nominated body.

The Congress president is elected by an electoral college comprising around 9,000 delegates. The delegates belong to the Pradesh Congress Committees (PCCs) and are, in turn, elected by Block Congress Committees of the Congress party.

On October 19, we would know the verdict of these delegates when the INC gets a new president.