New Delhi: The All India Congress Committee’s Central Election Authority officially announced Rahul Gandhi as the party president on Monday.
“Rahul Gandhi has been elected Congress president unopposed. 89 nomination proposals were received, all were valid. Since there was only one candidate, I hereby declare Rahul Gandhi elected as the president of Indian National Congress,” party leader Mullappally Ramachandran said.
He added, “Rahul Gandhi will be handed over the certificate of his election as the party president on 16th December in AICC office.”
Here’s a look at past presidents of the grand old party:
– Of the 15 people who led the 132-year-old party post-independence, four belonged to the Gandhi-Nehru family. Rahul will be the fifth.
– The Nehru-Gandhi clan was at the helm of affairs of the party after independence for 38 years, Nehru for three years, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi for eight years each, and Sonia Gandhi for a record 19 years.
– Long before independence, Rahul’s great-great-grandfather, Motilal Nehru, headed the party, the first from the family to do so.
– The party has been helmed by some illustrious people – including Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose, Abul Kalam Azad and Sarojini Naidu.
– Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, who wore several hats as journalist, jurist and politician, was the president of the first session of the Congress held in what was then Bombay in December 1885. Dadabhai Naoroji was the second.
– According to Congress and the Making of Indian Nation, a two-volume set edited by former Congress leader and ex-president of India Pranab Mukherjee, Scottish merchant George Yule was the president of the party in 1888 and presided over the Allahabad session.
– Sir William Wedderburn, a former member of the Indian Civil Service, headed the party twice – in 1889 and 1910.
– Alfred Webb, member of the House of Commons, Sir Henry Cotton, an ICS officer and chief commissioner of Assam, and Annie Besant, who started the Home Rule Movement, headed the Congress in 1894, 1904 and 1917 respectively.
– Madan Mohan Malviya, later one of the main leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha, presided over the Congress in 1909 and 1918. Motilal Nehru, the father of India’s first PM Jawaharlal Nehru, was party president in 1919 and 1928. His son first took over the reins in 1929, when the call for ‘Poorna Swaraj’ was given at the Lahore session of the party.
– After independence, the party was headed by four people from the Nehru-Gandhi family and 11 who were not.
– B Pattabhi Sitaramayya (1948) was followed by Purushottam Das Tandon (1949) and U N Dhebar (1955-59). The others were N Sanjiva Reddy (1960-62), K Kamaraj (1964-66), S Nijalingappa (1968-69), Jagjivan Ram (1969), Shankar Dayal Sharma (1972), D K Barooah (1975), P V Narasimha Rao (1992-96), and Sitaram Kesri (1997-98).
– Jawaharlal Nehru was the president of the party for three spells in 1929, 1936 and 1951-53.
– He was among the four-party presidents who also headed the government apart from his daughter, Indira Gandhi, grandson Rajiv and Andhra Pradesh leader PV Narasimha Rao.
– Indira Gandhi held the post in 1959 and 1978-84, her son Rajiv Gandhi in 1985-91 and daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi, from 1998 till 2017.
(With PTI inputs)
Source: Zee News