is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in theIndian political spectrum. Founded in 1885 by members of the occultist movement Theosophical Society—Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji, Dinshaw Wacha, Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, Surendranath Banerjee, Monomohun Ghose, Mahadev Govind Ranade and William Wedderburn—the Indian National Congress became the leader of the Indian Independence Movement, with over 15 million members and over 70 million participants in its struggle againstBritish rule in India.
After independence in 1947, it became the nation's dominant political party, led by the Nehru-Gandhi family for the most part; major challenges for party leadership have only recently formed.
In the 2009 general elections, the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha, with 205 of its candidates getting elected to the 543-member house. Consequently it, along with a coalition of allies called the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), was able to gain a majority and form the government.
History
The history of the Indian National Congress falls into two distinct eras:
- The pre-independence era, when the party was at the forefront of the struggle for independence and was instrumental in the whole of India;
- The post-independence era, when the party has enjoyed a prominent place in Indian politics, ruling the country for 48 of the 60 years since independence in 1947.
In the pre-independence era, the Congress was div
ided in two groups, moderate and activist. The moderates were more educated and wanted to win people's faith to lead the nation to independence without bloodshed; the activists however wanted to follow a revolutionary path and make it a militant organization.
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