List of All Presidents of the Indian National Congress (1885 to 2023)

The Indian National Congress (INC), popularly known as Congress, is a major political party of India. One of the oldest political party of the country, INC played an important role in gaining independence from British rules under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. Since its formation around 137 years ago, the party has seen over 90 presidents, many of whom were social reformers and freedom fighters. The party is still going strong and has currently formed a strong opposition to the ruling party (Bhartiya Janta Party). Here in this article, you will find a list of all presidents of the Indian National Congress (1885 to 2023).

Presidents of the Indian National Congress (Founding years 1885 to 1900)

When the Indian National Congress was formed in 1885, Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee became the first ever president of INC. The time period from 1885 to 1990 was considered as the founding years of INC and during this period, the party has seen 16 different presidents, changing every year. The table below presents a list of presidents of Congress from 1885 to 1900 along with the year they were appointed and their place of conference.

Year	President	Place of Conference
1885	Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee	Bombay
1886	Dadabhai Naoroji	Calcutta
1887	Badruddin Tyabji	Madras
1888	George Yule	Allahabad
1889	William Wedderburn	Bombay
1890	Pherozeshah Mehta	Calcutta
1891	Panapakkam Anandacharlu	Nagpur
1892	Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee	Allahabad
1893	Dadabhai Naoroji	Lahore
1894	Alfred Webb	Madras
1895	Surendranath Banerjee	Poona
1896	Rahimtulla M. Sayani	Calcutta
1897	C. Sankaran Nair	Amaravati
1898	Anandamohan Bose	Madras
1899	Romesh Chunder Dutt	Lucknow
1900	N. G. Chandavarkar	Lahore

Presidents of the Indian National Congress (Pre-independence era 1901 to 1947)

The pre-independence era Indian National Congress has seen some great freedom movement fighters and leaders as its presidents. Many social reformers and scholars too have acted as the president of Indian National Congress in the period from 1901 and 1947. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Annie Besant, etc were among the social reformers who acted as INC’s president. Among freedom fighters were Lala Lajpat Rai, Abul Kalam Azad, Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose and many others. Check out the list of all presidents of Indian National Congress before India got its independence.

• 1901- Dinshaw Edulji Wacha (Calcutta)
• 1902- Surendranath Banerjee (Ahmedabad)
• 1903- Lalmohan Ghosh (Madras)
• 1904- Henry John Stedman Cotton (Bombay)
• 1905- Gopal Krishna Gokhale (Banaras)
• 1906- Dadabhai Naoroji (Calcutta)
• 1907- Rashbihari Ghosh (Surat)
• 1908- Rashbihari Ghosh (Madras)

• 1909- Madan Mohan Malaviya (Lahore)
• 1910- William Wedderburn (Allahabad)
• 1911- Bishan Narayan Dar (Calcutta)
• 1912- Raghunath Narasinha Mudholkar (Bankipore)
• 1913- Nawab Syed Muhammad Bahadur (Karachi)
• 1914- Bhupendra Nath Bose (Madras)
• 1915- Satyendra Prasanno Sinha (Bombay)
• 1916- Ambica Charan Mazumdar (Lucknow)

• 1917- Annie Besant (Calcutta)
• 1918- Madan Mohan Malaviya (Delhi)
• 1918- Syed Hasan Imam (Bombay) (special session)
• 1919- Motilal Nehru (Amritsar)
• 1920- Lala Lajpat Rai (Calcutta)
• 1920- C. Vijayaraghavachariar (Nagpur)
• 1921- Hakim Ajmal Khan (Ahmedabad)
• 1922- Chittaranjan Das (Gaya)
• 1923- Mohammad Ali Jouhar (Kakinada)
• 1923- Abul Kalam Azad (Delhi) (Special Session)

• 1924- Mahatma Gandhi (Belgaum)
• 1925- Sarojini Naidu (Kanpur)
• 1926- S. Srinivasa Iyengar (Guwahati)
• 1927- Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari (Madras)
• 1928- Motilal Nehru (Calcutta)
• 1929- Jawaharlal Nehru (Lahore)

• 1930- Jawaharlal Nehru (Karachi)
• 1931- Vallabhbhai Patel (Karachi)
• 1932- Madan Mohan Malaviya (Delhi)
• 1933- Nellie Sengupta (Calcutta)
• 1934- Rajendra Prasad (Bombay)
• 1935- Rajendra Prasad (Lucknow)
• 1936- Jawaharlal Nehru (Lucknow)
• 1937- Jawaharlal Nehru (Faizpur)
• 1938- Subhas Chandra Bose (Haripura)
• 1939- Subhas Chandra Bose (Tewar)
• 1939 (March)- Rajendra Prasad (Tewar)
• 1940–46- Abul Kalam Azad (Ramgarh)
• 1946–47- J. B. Kripalani (Meerut)

Check: List of all Presidents of BJP

Presidents of the Indian National Congress (Post-independence era 1948 to 2023)

After post independence era, the party began to showing a little stability and many prominent members of the party began elected for longer sessions. The title of the only major party of India that INC enjoyed before independence started to change in this era. Formation of Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) played a major role and it emerged as a staunch opposition to the Indian National Congress. Check out the list of all presidents of Indian National Congress after India got its independence.

Year	President	Place of Conference
1948–1949	Bhogaraju Pattabhi Sitaramayya	Jaipur
1950	Purushottam Das Tandon	Nasik
1951–1952	Jawaharlal Nehru	Delhi
1953	Hyderabad
1954	Kalyani
1955	U. N. Dhebar	Avadi
1956	Amritsar
1957	Indore
1958	Gauhati
1959	Nagpur
1959 (special session)	Indira Gandhi	Delhi
1960	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy	Bangalore
1961	Bhavnagar
1962–1963	Patna
1964	K. Kamaraj	Bhubaneswar
1965	Durgapur
1966–1967	Jaipur
1968	S. Nijalingappa	Hyderabad
1969	Faridabad
1970–1971	Jagjivan Ram	Bombay
1972–74	Shankar Dayal Sharma	Calcutta
1975–78	Devakanta Barua	Chandigarh
1978–83	Indira Gandhi	New Delhi
1984	Calcutta
1985–1991	Rajiv Gandhi	Bombay
1992	P. V. Narasimha Rao	Tirupati
1993	Surajkund
1994	Delhi
1996–1998	Sitaram Kesri	Calcutta
1998–2001	Sonia Gandhi	New Delhi
2001-2004	Bangalore
2004–2006	New Delhi
2006–2010	Hyderabad
2010–2017	New Delhi
2017–2019	Rahul Gandhi	New Delhi
2019–2022	Sonia Gandhi	Jaipur
2022–Incumbent	Mallikarjun Kharge	New Delhi