Indian National Congress

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Indian National Congress
Chairperson	Sonia Gandhi
Parliamentary Chairperson	Sonia Gandhi
Leader in Lok Sabha	Sushilkumar Shinde[1]
Leader in Rajya Sabha	Manmohan Singh (Prime Minister)
Founded	1885
Headquarters	24, Akbar Road, New Delhi
Newspaper	Congress Sandesh
Student wing	National Students Union of India
Youth wing	Indian Youth Congress
Women's wing	Mahila Congress
Labour wing	Indian National Trade Union Congress
Ideology	Populism Indian Nationalism (Liberal nationalism) Social democracy Democratic socialism Gandhian socialism Progressivism Internal factions:  • Social liberalism  • Secularism  • Centrism  • Social conservatism
Political position	Centre-left
International affiliation	Alliance of Democrats[2] Progressive Alliance[3]
Colours	Aqua
ECI Status	National Party[4]
Alliance	United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
Seats in Lok Sabha	206 / 545
Seats in Rajya Sabha	70 / 245
Election symbol
Website
www.aicc.org.in
Politics of India Political parties Elections

	This article is part of a series about Indian National Congress	Joe Biden
History of Congress Pradesh Congress Committee All India Congress Committee Congress Working Committee Congress President Central Election Committee Statewise Election history of Congress Party

The Indian National Congress (abbreviated INC, and commonly known as the Congress) is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It is the largest and one of the oldest democratically-operating political parties in the world.^[5][6][7] The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered centre-left wing in the Indian political spectrum as contrasted to the right-wing socio-religious ultra-nationalist-based Bharatiya Janata Party. 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^[8] and William Wedderburn—the Indian National Congress became a pivotal participant in the Indian Independence Movement, with over 15 million members and over 70 million participants in its struggle against British colonial rule in India.^[9] 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.^[9]

In the 2009 general elections, the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha, with 206 of its candidates getting elected to the 543-member house. Consequently it, as a member of a coalition of political organisations called the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), was able to gain a majority and form the government.

Contents 1 History 1.1 The pre-independence era 1.2 The post-independence era 1.2.1 Jawaharlal Nehru 1.3 K. Kamaraj 1.4 Indira Gandhi 1.5 The post-Indira era 2 Ideology and policies 2.1 Social policy 2.2 Economic policy 2.3 Foreign policy 3 Organisational Structure 4 Congress in Pradesh (States) 5 Congress in various states 5.1 List of current Congress/UPA Chief Ministers 6 Prime Ministers of the Republic from the Congress Party 7 Controversies and criticisms 7.1 1947: Anti-Godse riots 7.2 1975-1977: State of Emergency 7.3 1984: anti-Sikh riots 7.4 Bofors scandal 7.5 Charges of bidding for seats 7.6 Allegations of softness towards religious extremism and terrorism 7.7 2G spectrum scam 7.8 Bribes to Members of Parliament 7.9 Other charges of corruption 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links

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 ideologically divided into two groups, moderate and activist. The moderates were more educated and wanted to win people's faith to lead the nation to independence without fighting; the activists, on the other hand, favoured more revolutionary tactics and sought to make the INC a paramilitary group.^{[citation needed]}

The pre-independence era

The Congress was founded by Indian and British members of the Theosophical Society movement, most notably A.O. Hume.^[9] It has been suggested that the idea was originally conceived in a private meeting of seventeen men after a Theosophical Convention held at Madras in December 1884. Hume took the initiative, and it was in March 1885 that the first notice was issued convening the first Indian National Union to meet at Poona the following December.^[10]

Founded in 1885 claiming that it had the objective of obtaining a greater share in government for educated Indians was created to form a platform for civic and political dialogue of educated Indians with the British Raj. The Congress met once a year during December. Indeed, it was a Scotsman, Allan Octavian Hume, who brought about its first meeting in Bombay, with the approval of Lord Dufferin, the then-Viceroy. Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee was the first President of the INC. The first meeting was scheduled to be held in Pune, but due to a plague outbreak there, the meeting was later shifted to Bombay. The first session of the INC was held from 28–31 December 1885, and was attended by 72 delegates.

Within a few years, the demands of the INC became more radical in the face of constant opposition from the government, and the party decided to advocate in favour of the independence movement, as it would allow for a new political system in which they could be a majorly dominant party. By 1907 the party was split into two halves—the Garam Dal (literally "hot faction") of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, or Extremists, and the Naram Dal (literally "soft faction") of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, or Moderates—distinguished by their attitude towards the British colonists. Under the influence of Tilak, the Congress became the first organised independence group in the country, bringing together millions of people against the British.^[9]

In the pre-independence era, the INC featured a number of prominent political figures: Dadabhai Naoroji, a member of the sister Indian National Association, elected president of the Congress in 1886, and between 1892 and 1895 the first Indian Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons; Bal Gangadhar Tilak; Bipin Chandra Pal; Lala Lajpat Rai; Gopal Krishna Gokhale; and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, later leader of the Muslim League and instrumental in the creation of Pakistan. The Congress was transformed into a mass movement by Surendranath Banerjea and Sir Henry Cotton during the partition of Bengal in 1905 and the resultant Swadeshi movement. Mohandas Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915 and with the help of the moderate group led by Ghokhale became president of the Congress and formed an alliance with the Khilafat movement. In protest a number of leaders—Chittaranjan Das, Annie Besant, Motilal Nehru—resigned from the Congress to set up the Swaraj Party. The Khilafat movement collapsed and the Congress was split.

With the rise of Mahatma Gandhi's popularity and his Satyagraha art of revolution came Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (the nation's first Prime Minister), Dr. Rajendra Prasad (the nation's first President), Khan Mohammad Abbas Khan, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Chakravarti Rajgopalachari, Dr. Anugraha Narayan Sinha, Jayaprakash Narayan, Jivatram Kripalani and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. With the already existing nationalistic feeling combined with Gandhi's popularity, the Congress became a forceful and dominant group of people in the country, bringing together millions of people by specifically working against caste differences, untouchability, poverty, and religious and ethnic boundaries. Although predominantly Hindu, it had members from just about every religion, ethnic group, economic class and linguistic group. In 1939, Subhas Chandra Bose, the elected president in both 1938 and 1939 was expelled from the Congress for his socialist views and the Congress was reduced to a pro-business group financed by the business houses of Birla and Bajaj. At the time of the Quit India movement, the Congress was undoubtedly the strongest revolutionary group in India, but the Congress disassociated itself from the Quit India movement within a few days. The Indian National Congress could not claim to be the sole representative of the Indian people as other parties were there as well notably the Hindu Mahasabha, Azad Hind Sarkar, and Forward Bloc.

The 1929 Lahore session under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru holds special significance as in this session "Poorna Swaraj" (complete independence) was declared as the goal of the INC. 26 January 1930 was declared as "Poorna Swaraj Diwas", Independence Day, although the British would remain in India for 17 more years. To commemorate this date the Constitution of India was formally adopted on 26 January 1950, even though it had been passed on 26 November 1949. However, in 1929, Srinivas Iyenger was expelled from the Congress for demanding full independence, not just home rule as demanded by Gandhi.

After the First World War the party became associated with Mohandas K. Gandhi, who remained its unofficial, spiritual leader and mass icon even as younger men and women became party president. The party was in many ways an umbrella organisation, sheltering within itself radical socialists, traditionalists and even Hindu and Muslim conservatives, but all the socialist groupings (including the Congress Socialist Party, Krishak Praja Party, and Swarajya Party members) were expelled by Gandhi along with Subhas Chandra Bose in 1939. Members of the Congress initially supported the sailors who led the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny. However they withdrew support at the critical juncture, when the mutiny failed. During the INA trials of 1946, the Congress helped to form the INA Defence Committee, which forcefully defended the case of the soldiers of the Azad Hind government. The committee declared the formation of the Congress' defence team for the INA and included famous lawyers of the time, including Bhulabhai Desai, Asaf Ali, and Jawaharlal Nehru.

The post-independence era

The party remained in power for thirty continuous years between independence in 1947 and its first taste of electoral defeat (at the national level) in 1977.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel are said to have held the view that the INC was formed only for achieving independence and should have been disbanded in 1947.^[11] However, at the time of independence, the INC (led by Jawaharlal Nehru) was dominant in the Indian political environment and was established as the main political party. The Congress thus, considering the perceived need for a stable leadership and guiding vision after the confusion and problems during and following the Partition of India and independence, was re-established as an electoral party in independent India. Across several general elections, the party ruled uninterruptedly until 1977, and has remained a major political force.^{[citation needed]}

After the Gandhi's assassination in 1948, and the death of Sardar Patel in 1950, Jawaharlal Nehru was the sole remaining iconic national leader, and soon the situation became such that Nehru was key to the political potency and future of the Congress. Nehru embraced secularism, socialistic economic practices and a non-aligned foreign policy, which became the hallmark of the modern Congress Party. Nehru's policies targeted the more well-off, claiming to have thus improved the position of religious minorities and lower-caste Hindus.^{[citation needed]} A generation of freedom fighting leaders was soon replaced by a generation of people who had grown up in the shadow of Nehru. Nehru led the Congress to consecutive majorities in the elections of 1952, 1957 and 1962.

After Nehru's death in 1964, the party's future first came into question. No other leader had Nehru's popular appeal, so the second-stage leadership mustered around the compromise candidate, the gentle, soft-spoken and Nehruvian Lal Bahadur Shastri. Shastri remained Prime Minister till his own death in 1966, and a broad Congress party election opted for Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, over the right-wing, conservative Morarji Desai.

K. Kamaraj

Toward the end of Nehru's life, K. Kamaraj was became the president of the All India Congress Committee and proposed the Kamaraj Plan. According to the plan six Congress chief ministers and six senior Cabinet ministers resigned to take up party work. After Nehru's death, Kamaraj was instrumental in bringing Lal Bahadur Shastri to power in 1964. He was part of a group of leaders in the Congress called "the syndicate". After Shastri's death, the syndicate favoured Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi over Morarji Desai and she became the prime minister of India in 1967. For his role in the two successions, Kamaraj was widely credited as the "kingmaker" in Indian politics. Kamaraj stepped down as AICC president in 1967.

Indira Gandhi

The first serious challenge to Congress hegemony came in 1967 when a new coalition, under the banner of the Samyukt Vidhayak Dal, won control over several states in the Hindi belt. Indira Gandhi (not related to Mahatma Gandhi), the daughter of Nehru, and Congress president, was then challenged by the majority of the party leadership. The conflict led to a split, and Indira launched a separate INC. Initially this party was known as Congress (R), but it soon came to be generally known as the "New Congress". The official party became the Indian National Congress (Organisation) (INC(O)) led by Kamaraj. It was informally called the "Old Congress". As Indira Gandhi had control over the national state machinery, her faction was seen as the official INC by the Election Commission of India, although her party was a break-away group.

The split can in some ways be seen as a left-wing/right-wing division. Indira Gandhi wanted to use a populist agenda in order to gather popular support for the party. She raised slogans such as Garibi Hatao (Remove Poverty), and wanted to develop closer ties with the Soviet Union, for strategic purposes.^[12] The regional party elites, who formed the INC(O), stood for a more conservative agenda, and distrusted Soviet help. INC(O) later merged into the Janata Party.

Gradually, Indira Gandhi grew more authoritarian and autocratic in her policies and outlook. Following allegations of electoral malpractice in the general elections, a court overturned Gandhi's victory in her parliamentary constituency in thr 1971 General Elections. Facing growing criticism and widespread demonstrations by opposition in the country, she proclaimed a state of National Emergency in 1975, imprisoned most of her party's opposition, and unleashed a police state.

After she lifted the emergency in 1977, more Congress factions were formed, the one remaining loyal to Indira Gandhi being popularly known as Congress(I) with an 'I' for Indira. Congress(I) was routed in the general elections by the Janata Party, but the resulting coalition government lasted only two years. The Congress party returned to power in the ensuing 1980 elections. In 1984 Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards, in revenge for the disastrous Operation Blue Star. In the following days anti-Sikh riots broke out in Delhi and elsewhere in which more than six thousand Sikhs were killed, purportedly by activists and leaders of the Congress Party.^[13]

The post-Indira era

Following the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, the Indian National Congress party leaders nominated Rajiv Gandhi to be the next Prime Minister. He took office by storm, winning major election victory, and leading the Congress party by winning 411 seats out of 542, in the Indian Parliament. He helped improve the economic, foreign and security policies of the country, during his tenure.^{[citation needed]}

Afterward, former treasurer Sitaram Kesri took over the reins of the party and oversaw the Congress support to the United Front governments that ran from 1996 to 1998. During his tenure, several key leaders broke away from the party, and serious infighting broke out among those left. In 1998, Sonia Gandhi finally accepted the post of Congress President, in a move that may have saved the party from extinction.

After her election as party leader, a section of the party, which objected to the choice, broke away and formed the Nationalist Congress Party. The use of "Congress (I)" continues to denote the party run by Indira Gandhi's successors. Sonia Gandhi's autocratic era in power has been criticised by some, including the ultra-nationalist right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People's Party) and the ultra-left wing Communist Party of India (Marxist) as well as other, mostly affiliated, groups on the basis that she is a foreigner of Italian ethnicity.

Although the Congress expedited the downfall of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 1999 by promising an alternative, Ms. Gandhi's decision was followed by fresh elections and the Congress party's worst-ever tally in the lower house. The party spent the interval period forging alliances and overseeing changes in the state and central institutions to revive the party. It has had many electoral successes which led up to the formation of a Congress-led government in 2004. In the next general election in 2009 which made Manmohan Singh the Prime Minister once again, and Congress was the first party to get 206 seats during a coalition era of politics.

Ideology and policies

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Historically, the party has supported and advocated in favour of farmers, laborers, worker's unions (Labour unions), and religious and ethnic minorities; it has also advocated in favour of the regulation of business and finance, and has looked favourably upon the levying of income taxes. However, in recent years the party has turned towards centrist economic and social democratic policies. Today, the INC advocates neo-liberal policies including populism, social liberalism, secularism and free enterprise with government regulations such as public–private partnership (PPP) model^{[citation needed]}. As a political party, the INC has publicised its intentions to do all it can to reduce poverty, illiteracy and strongly supports the weaker section of the society.^{[citation needed]}

Social policy

Social policy of the INC is officially based upon the Gandhian principle of Sarvodaya (upliftment of all sections of the society.) In particular INC emphasises upon policies to improve the lives of the economically underprivillaged and socially disprivilleged sections of society. This includes publicising employment generation efforts for the rural population (through schemes such as National Rural Employment Generation Scheme) etc. The party supports the somewhat controversial concept of family planning with birth control but hasn't overtly supported elective abortion (i.e. Gender-Selective abortion)^{[citation needed]}, which would be controversial and dangerous as certain groups (e.g. Feminists) could consider that to be sexist or insensitive and the INC wouldn't have been able to survive under such pressure. The INC supports the highly controversial 'Reservation' system (i.e. reserving jobs and other things for underprivileged factions of society) which could lead to an inexperienced poorer person getting a job instead of an experienced wealthier person, though it could also be vice versa.

Economic policy

Initially and for a long time, the economic policy of the INC was centred around the public sector and aimed at establishing a "socialistic pattern of society". However, after the recent adoption of Economically Liberal policies started by Manmohan Singh the then Finance Minister^{[citation needed]} in the early 1990s, the economic policy of INC has been changed somewhat and it is now adopted free market policies, though at the same time it is in favour of taking a cautious approach when it comes to liberalising the economy claiming it is to help ensure that the weaker sectors aren't affected to hard by the changes that come with liberalisation.^{[citation needed]}

Foreign policy

Traditionally, nonalignment has been the bedrock of the foreign policy of the INC.^{[citation needed]}

Organisational Structure

The organisational structure created by Mohandas Gandhi's re-arrangement of the Congress in the years of 1918 to 1920 has largely been retained till today.

In every Indian state and union territory or pradesh, there is a Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), which is the state-level unit of the party, responsible for directing political campaigns at local and state levels and assisting the campaigns for Parliamentary constituencies. Each PCC has a Working Committee of 10–15 key members, and the state president is the leader of the state unit. The Congressmen elected as members of the states legislative assemblies form the Congress Legislature Parties in the various state assemblies, and their chairperson is usually the party's nominee for Chief Ministership.

The All India Congress Committee (AICC) is formed of delegates sent from the PCCs around the country. The delegates elect various Congress committees, including the Congress Working Committee, which consists of senior party leaders and office bearers, and takes all important executive and political decisions.

The President of the Indian National Congress is in effect the party's national leader, head of the organisation, head of the Working Committee and all chief Congress committees, chief spokesman and the Congress choice to become the Prime Minister of India.

Constitutionally, the president is to be elected by the vote of the PCCs and members of the AICC. However, this procedure has often been by-passed by the Working Committee, choosing to elect its own candidate as a result of conditional circumstances.

The Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) is the group of elected MPs in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. It is headed by senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee. Since the current Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh is not an elected member of the Lok Sabha, Pranab is the CPP president. Dr. Singh is Leader of the Rajya Sabha. There is also a CLP leader in each state. The CLP (Congress Legislative Party) consists of all Congress Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in each state. It also comes under the CPP so Pranab is head of the MLAs also. In cases of states where the Congress is single-handedly ruling the government, the CLP leader is the Chief Minister.

Congress in Pradesh (States)

Congress in various states

• Congress is currently in power in nine states (Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Rajasthan) and one union territory (Delhi) where the party enjoys a majority of its own.
• In five other states — Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand — it shares power with other alliance partners.
• In Tamil Nadu, it lost power in the 1967 assembly election and has not been able to recapture it since.
• In the remaining states and in the union territory of Puducherry, various opposition parties are in power.

List of current Congress/UPA Chief Ministers

All Chief Ministers from the Congress are mentioned first and are marked as bold-

• N. Kiran Kumar Reddy - Andhra Pradesh
• Nabam Tuki - Arunachal Pradesh
• Tarun Gogoi - Assam
• Sheila Dikshit - Delhi
• Bhupinder Singh Hooda - Haryana
• Virbhadra Singh - Himachal Pradesh
• Siddaramaiah - Karnataka
• Oommen Chandy - Kerala
• Prithviraj Chavan - Maharashtra
• Okram Singh - Manipur
• Mukul Sangma - Meghalaya
• Pu Lalthanhawla - Mizoram
• Ashok Gehlot - Rajasthan
• Vijay Bahuguna - Uttarakhand
• Omar Abdullah - Jammu and Kashmir

Prime Ministers of the Republic from the Congress Party

• Jawaharlal Nehru (1947–1964)
• Gulzarilal Nanda (May–June 1964 and in January 1966)
• Lal Bahadur Shastri (1964–1966)
• Indira Gandhi (1966–1977, 1980–1984)
• Rajiv Gandhi (1984–1989)
• P.V. Narasimha Rao (1991–1996)
• Manmohan Singh (2004–)

Controversies and criticisms

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1947: Anti-Godse riots

After the knowledge that the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, Nathuram Godse, was a Maharashtrian Brahmin, some workers of the Congress Party went on a rampage, against the supporters of Savarkar and Nathuram Godse, burning their houses and putting thousands in jail.^[14]

1975-1977: State of Emergency

On 12 June 1975 the High Court of Allahabad declared Indira Gandhi's election to the Lok Sabha void on grounds of electoral malpractice. But Gandhi rejected calls to resign and announced plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Gandhi had already been accused of authoritarianism. By using her strong parliamentary majority, her ruling Congress Party had amended the Constitution and altered the balance of power between the Centre and the States in favour of the Central Government. She had twice imposed "President's Rule" under Article 356 of the Constitution by declaring states ruled by opposition parties as "lawless and chaotic", and thus seizing control. In response to her new tendency for authoritarian use of power, public figures and former freedom-fighters like Jaya Prakash Narayan, Satyendra Narayan Sinha and Acharya Jivatram Kripalani toured India, speaking actively against her and her government.

Gandhi moved to restore order by ordering the arrest of most of the opposition participating in the unrest. Her Cabinet and government then recommended that President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declare a state of emergency, because of the disorder and lawlessness following the Allahabad High Court decision. Accordingly, Ahmed declared a State of Emergency caused by internal disorder, based on the provisions of Article 352 of the Constitution, on 26 June 1975. It is one of the most controversial periods in the history of independent India.^[15]

1984: anti-Sikh riots

After the assassination of Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh Body Guards following Operation Blue Star, many Congress workers including Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and Kamal Nath were accused of inciting and participating in Sikh riots.

There are allegations that the government destroyed evidence and shielded the guilty. The Asian Age front-page story called the government actions "the Mother of all Cover-ups"^[16][17] There are allegations that the violence was led and often perpetrated by Indian National Congress activists and sympathisers during the riots.^[13] The government, then led by the Congress, was widely criticised for doing very little at the time, possibly acting as a conspirator. The conspiracy theory is supported by the fact that voting lists were used to identify Sikh families.

Bofors scandal

The Bofors scandal was a major corruption scandal in India in the 1980s. Late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was simultaneously serving as the president of Congress (I), and his associates the late Win Chadha and Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi were accused of receiving kickbacks to help Bofors win a bid in 1986 to sell 155 mm field howitzers to the Indian Army. The scale of this corruption was far worse than any that India had seen before, and directly led to the defeat of Gandhi's ruling Congress party in the November 1989 general elections. It has been speculated that the scale of the scandal was to the tune of 400 million.^[18]

The case came to light during Vishwanath Pratap Singh's tenure as defence minister, and was revealed through investigative journalism by Chitra Subramaniam and N. Ram of the newspapers the Indian Express and The Hindu.^[19]

In January 2011, an Income tax tribunal ruled that Rs. 41.2 crore was paid as kickbacks to the late Win Chadha and Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi in the Swedish howitzer deal and the two are liable to tax in India on such income.^[20]

Charges of bidding for seats

In November 2008, senior Congress leader, Margaret Alva, made a charge that Congress seats for the elections were up for bidding as opposed to a meritocratic appointment to run. The party responded to the charge by denying such a claim, as well as dropping her as general secretary of the party, the Congress Working Committee and the party's Central Election Committee. She was also stripped of her charge of the Congress party in Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana and Mizoram. Congress spokesperson, Shakeel Ahmad, added that "Congress president Mrs Sonia Gandhi has taken the decision on the report submitted by Mr AK Antony, chairperson of the Disciplinary Action Committee."^[21] This followed an outburst by the son of the congress chairperson, Rahul Gandhi, that "Democracy in political parties is non-existent in India. You cannot enter unless you are well connected." In response the recent allegations he said, "I had made some recommendations to include some younger boys. I am not unhappy with the distribution of tickets."^[22]

Allegations of softness towards religious extremism and terrorism

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Rivalling parties such as those from the NDA coalition (i.e. the BJP) have often claimed that the Congress party and other UPA coalition members might be too soft on Islamic extremist and fundamentalist ideologies and actions such as Islamic terrorism and Islamism by scrapping the Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA) immediately after it won the elections in 2004. Senior BJP leaders such as Nitin Gadkari and Narendra Modi have accused Congress Party of being soft on Indian terrorist groups such as Indian Mujahideen for the sake of vote bank politics.^[23][24]

Congress and its allies are insulted by political rivals for not retaliating against Islamic terrorists in Kashmir and focusing on the issues of the Indian Muslim community solely to gain Muslim votes. Kashmiri Pandits have been in exile since January 1990 following the outbreak of terrorism in Kashmir.^[25]

2G spectrum scam

The scam was bought into limelight in 2010 when case filed against Minister for Communications and Information Technology A. Raja had been reported. 2G licenses were issued to private telecom players at throwaway prices in 2008. The CAG estimated on the basis of 3G auction that the 2G Spectrum scam had cost the government Rs. 1.76 lakh crore. Rules and procedures were flouted while issuing licenses.^[26] The CBI in the Supreme Court has since indicated that the factual loss is around Rs 30 000 crore.^[27]

The 2G spectrum scam came in a year that was full of scams for the Congress (UPA) government. The government meanwhile also faced the accusation of using the CBI for covering up scandals, in wake of which, the BJP chief Nitin Gadkari termed the CBI as "Congress Bureau of Investigation".^[28]

Bribes to Members of Parliament

As per United States secret diplomatic cable number 162458 dated 17 July 2008, Congress Party insider Satish Sharma's political aide Nachiketa Kapur told a US diplomat on 16 July 2008 that the party paid INR 100 million (about $2.5 million) each to four Members of Parliament^[29] in order to help the party narrowly survive a no-confidence motion.^[30] Another Congress Party insider told the US Political Counsel in New Delhi that Congress Party cabinet minister Kamal Nath was also helping bribe Members of Parliament in order to help secure the votes.^[29]

Other charges of corruption

Since the party has dominated the political landscape of India for over a century, there are many charges of corruption and authoritarianism against it, with people questioning India's Democracy. In the wake of the 2G Spectrum scam, the 2010 Commonwealth Games Scam and the Adarsh Housing Society Mumbai, a survey by an Indian magazine Outlook and a television news channel CNN-IBN in 2011 said that the Congress was seen as the most corrupt political party in India.^[31]

See also

• Congress Working Committee
• All India Congress Committee
• Pradesh Congress Committee
• Statewise Election history of Congress Party
• Jinnah's People's Memorial Hall
• Nehru - Feroze Gandhi family
• List of political parties in India
• Politics of India
• President of the Indian National Congress

References

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Indian National Congress

• Indian National Congress — Official website
• Official Facebook page
• Official Twitter account
• Indian National Congress Discussion Group
• Congress Archives
• Congress Media
• Congress Sandesh
• National Students Union of India
• Indian Youth Congress
• Indian National Congress at the Open Directory Project

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