Indian National Congress Leaders List - List of Presidents of INC from 1885

Syllabus	General Studies - Paper I, General Studies - Paper II
Topics for Prelims	Indian National Congress (INC), Political parties in India
Topics for Mains	Important sessions of the Indian National Congress (INC), INC’s role in India's struggle for independence

The Indian National Congress is one of India's oldest political parties. It was founded in 1885. The political dominance of the party extended during British colonial rule and post-independence in India. This article outlines Congress presidents from its inception to the present, crucial to understanding its historical phases. This reveals the significant role in the freedom movement and post-1947 politics. Sonia Gandhi holds the record for the longest presidency, serving over twenty years from 1998 to 2017 and from 2019 to 2022. On October 17, 2022, Mallikarjun Kharge was elected president, winning against Shashi Tharoor.

The Congress President List is among the most important topics for the UPSC IAS exam. It covers a significant part of the Modern History & Polity subject in the Mains General Studies Paper-1 and General Studies Paper-II syllabus.

In this article, we shall study the list of congress presidents in the Indian National Congress since its inception.

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Indian National Congress President List from 1885

There have been 75 presidents of the Indian National Congress since its inception. Given below is the Congress President List according to their tenures.

List of INC Presidents Before Independence

The table below gives the list of INC presidents before India gained independence:

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Indian National Congress Leaders - Post-Independence

The table below gives the list of leaders of the INC after India gained independence:

Read the article on the Idea of India and Role of Indian National Congress!

Notable Congress Presidents

The below mentioned are some of the notable congress presidents: 

Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee 

Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee co-founded the Indian National Congress. He was 1st president of Indian national congress in 1885. 

Dadabhai Naoroji 

Dadabhai Naoroji was a political leader and scholar. He was a prominent leader who served as the 2nd, 9th, and 22nd President of the Indian National Congress from 1886 to 1887, 1893 to 1894, and 1906 to 1907, respectively. He was also known as the "Grand Old Man of India" and "Unofficial Ambassador of India." 

Badruddin Tyabji 

Badruddin Tyabji was an Indian lawyer by profession. He was the first Indian to practice as a barrister at the High Court of Bombay. He also served as the third President of the Indian National Congress in 1887. He established the Bombay Presidency Association in 1885.

Pherozeshah Mehta 

Pherozeshah Mehta was a lawyer by profession. He was an Indian politician. He served as president of the Indian National Congress in 1890. Pherozeshah Mehta is also regarded as one of the founders of the Indian National Congress and a leader in Indian nationalism.

JB Kripalani

Acharya Kripalani led the Congress at the time of the handover of authority as India attained independence in 1947. He lost the party election in 1950, which led to his resignation from Congress.

Pattabhi Sitaramayya

With Jawaharlal Nehru’s backing, Pattabhi Sitaramayya was elected as the president of Congress. Later, from 1952 to 1957, he served as Madhya Pradesh’s governor.

Purushottam Das Tandon

Tandon, a Bharat Ratna recipient, defeated Kripalani in the 1950 elections but soon resigned from office due to disagreements with Nehru. Tandon was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1956 after serving as a Lok Sabha MP in 1952. Additionally, he played a crucial role in ensuring that Hindi was designated as an official language.

Jawaharlal Nehru

The Congress Party’s president served as India’s first prime minister during 1951, 1957, and 1962, when they dominated local, state, and federal elections.

UN Dhebar

Following his tenure as chief minister of Saurashtra from 1948 to 1954, UN Dhebar was elected president of Congress. Dhebar was chosen to represent Rajkot in the Lok Sabha in 1962.

Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi held it for three separate, nonconsecutive terms. In 1959, she became the Indian National Congress’s first female president. After Shastri’s passing, she defeated Morarji Desai in the race for the leadership of the Congress Party in the early months of 1966. The backing of Kamaraj helped her win a second term. In addition to being her final term, her third term was more important because it started immediately after the Emergency that she had helped to impose. Indira Gandhi lost her seat in the election. Therefore, the defeated Congress party chose Yashwantrao Chavan to lead them in parliament. Soon after, she launched her own Congress faction, causing the Congress party to divide once more.

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy

From 1960 to 1962, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy presided over three Congress meetings: Bangalore, Bhavnagar, and Patna. In the Lal Bahadur Shastri administration in 1964, he was a Union Minister. From January 1966 to March 1967, he was Indira Gandhi’s Cabinet member. He left the party and was elected Speaker of the Lok Sabha in 1967. He was elected Speaker of the Lok Sabha in 1975 after winning the election as a Janata Party candidate. In 17 days, he submitted his resignation to assume the presidency.

K Kamaraj

Between 1964 and 1967, Kumaraswami Kamaraj presided over the Indian National Congress for two terms. In the 1960s, he was called the “Kingmaker” in political circles. After Nehru’s passing, he appointed Lal Bahadur Shastri as Prime Minister, and after Shastri, Indira Gandhi became the next PM. He served as the Congress (O) party’s leader when the party broke up following Indira Gandhi’s election to the position of Congress president. He was the third Chief Minister of Madras State (Tamil Nadu).

S Nijalingappa

In 1968, Siddavanahalli Nijalingappa was elected to lead the All India Congress Committee. When voters demonstrated mistrust in the 1967 elections, he was elected president of Congress. In 1968 and 1969, he presided over two Congress meetings held in Hyderabad and Faridabad, respectively. The final leader of the unbroken Congress party was Nijalingappa.

Jagjivan Ram

In 1969, the Congress Party broke apart, and Jagjivan Ram sided with Indira Gandhi’s faction. He was elected president of the Indira Gandhi-led Congress faction. Later, he joined the Janata Party. Later, he established his own party, called Congress (J).

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Shankar Dayal Sharma

From 1972 until 1974, Shankar Dayal Sharma, the country’s ninth president, presided over the All India Congress Committee. Before being chosen as the eighth Vice President of India in 1987 under R Venkataraman, Sharma served as Governor of Andhra Pradesh from 1984 to 1985, Punjab from 1985 to 1986, and Maharashtra from 1986 to 1987. He took office as India’s president in 1992 and held the position until 1997.

Devakanta Barua

During the Emergency from 1975 to 1977, an Assamese politician from India served as the INC’s president. Barua left the party formerly known as the Indian Congress (Socialist) and is well known for his declaration, “India is Indira, Indira is India. He is the only Assamese president of the Indian National Congress and the first one..”

Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi became the party’s leader when Indira Gandhi was killed, and he held that position until he died in 1991.

PV Narasimha Rao

PV Narasimha Rao served as Congress president and India’s prime minister throughout his administration. After Congress won the most seats in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, which were held in the wake of Congress President Rajiv Gandhi’s murder, he was appointed prime minister. Rao resigned as Party President following his party’s defeat in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections. In his place, Sitaram Kesri took over.

Sitaram Kesri

The Indian National Congress nominated Sitaram Kesri as its new leader in September 1996. Kesri's most decisive action was the sudden withdrawal of support for HD Deva Gowda’s United Front administration, which caused its overthrow in April 1997. IK Gujral was chosen as the new leader of the United Front by the United Front after a compromise was achieved and maintained support from Congress. After the 1998 election loss for the party, he was fired from his position.

Sonia Gandhi

The position of Congress president was held for the longest by Sonia Gandhi. During her leadership, Congress won two further elections in 2004 and 2009 but lost the Lok Sabha election to the BJP in 2014. After Rahul Gandhi resigned from the position, she was once more named as the acting president.

Rahul Gandhi

The Indian National Congress was led by Rahul Gandhi from December 16, 2017, to July 3, 2019. After Congress was trounced in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he resigned from his position.

Mallikarjun Kharge

Political figure Mapanna Mallikarjun Kharge has been a member of the Rajya Sabha since 16 February 2021 and is the 98th and current president of the Indian National Congress. After 24 years, he was the first individual besides the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to be elected party president.

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Non-Gandhi President of INC

Sitaram Kesri, the party’s most recent president, who was not a member of the Gandhi family, presided over the organisation with Narasimha Rao, K Kamaraj, and Shankar Dayal Sharma in the past. Sonia Gandhi, the outgoing president, has held the position longer than any other president, including Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, since 1997. As a result, a new Non-Gandhi President was needed for the party’s betterment. Here is a list of the members of Congress who went on to lead their party following Independence.

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