Congress Sessions and Presidents
Learn the Congress sessions, places and presidents in groups. The ones in bold are asked most often.
1885 to 1918
| Year | Place | President |
|---|---|---|
| 1885 | Bombay | W.C. Bonnerjee (first) |
| 1886 | Calcutta | Dadabhai Naoroji |
| 1887 | Madras | Badruddin Tyabji (first Muslim) |
| 1888 | Allahabad | George Yule (first English) |
| 1889 | Bombay | William Wedderburn |
| 1890 | Calcutta | Pherozeshah Mehta |
| 1891 | Nagpur | P. Ananda Charlu |
| 1892 | Allahabad | W.C. Bonnerjee |
| 1893 | Lahore | Dadabhai Naoroji |
| 1894 | Madras | Alfred Webb |
| 1895 | Poona | Surendranath Banerjea |
| 1896 | Calcutta | Rahimtulla Sayani (Vande Mataram sung) |
| 1897 | Amravati | C. Sankaran Nair |
| 1898 | Madras | Ananda Mohan Bose |
| 1899 | Lucknow | R.C. Dutt |
| 1900 | Lahore | N.G. Chandavarkar |
| 1901 | Calcutta | D.E. Wacha |
| 1902 | Ahmedabad | Surendranath Banerjea |
| 1903 | Madras | Lalmohan Ghosh |
| 1904 | Bombay | Henry Cotton |
| 1905 | Banaras | G.K. Gokhale |
| 1906 | Calcutta | Dadabhai Naoroji (Swaraj) |
| 1907 | Surat | Rash Behari Ghosh (split) |
| 1908 | Madras | Rash Behari Ghosh |
| 1909 | Lahore | Madan Mohan Malaviya |
| 1910 | Allahabad | William Wedderburn |
| 1911 | Calcutta | Bishan Narayan Dar (Jana Gana Mana sung) |
| 1912 | Bankipore | R.N. Mudholkar |
| 1913 | Karachi | Nawab Syed Muhammad Bahadur |
| 1914 | Madras | Bhupendra Nath Basu |
| 1915 | Bombay | S.P. Sinha |
| 1916 | Lucknow | A.C. Mazumdar (reunion, Lucknow Pact) |
| 1917 | Calcutta | Annie Besant (first woman) |
| 1918 | Bombay (special) | Syed Hasan Imam |
| 1918 | Delhi | Madan Mohan Malaviya |
1919 to 1947
| Year | Place | President |
|---|---|---|
| 1919 | Amritsar | Motilal Nehru |
| 1920 | Calcutta (special) | Lala Lajpat Rai (approved Non-Cooperation) |
| 1920 | Nagpur | C. Vijayaraghavachariar |
| 1921 | Ahmedabad | Hakim Ajmal Khan (acting; C.R. Das was in jail) |
| 1922 | Gaya | C.R. Das |
| 1923 | Delhi (special) | Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (youngest, aged 35) |
| 1923 | Kakinada | Maulana Mohammad Ali |
| 1924 | Belgaum | M.K. Gandhi (only time) |
| 1925 | Kanpur | Sarojini Naidu (first Indian woman) |
| 1926 | Guwahati | S. Srinivasa Iyengar |
| 1927 | Madras | M.A. Ansari |
| 1928 | Calcutta | Motilal Nehru |
| 1929 | Lahore | Jawaharlal Nehru (Purna Swaraj) |
| 1931 | Karachi | Vallabhbhai Patel |
| 1933 | Calcutta | Nellie Sengupta (British-born; the 1932 and 1933 sessions were held under the ban) |
| 1934 | Bombay | Rajendra Prasad |
| 1936 | Lucknow | Jawaharlal Nehru |
| 1936 | Faizpur | Jawaharlal Nehru (first session in a village) |
| 1938 | Haripura | Subhas Chandra Bose |
| 1939 | Tripuri | Subhas Bose (re-elected; resigned, then Rajendra Prasad) |
| 1940 | Ramgarh | Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (to 1946) |
| 1946 | Meerut | J.B. Kripalani |
Keep practising
Notes are only half the work. Test yourself with questions and discuss doubts with other aspirants.
Prepared for exam revision from standard sources such as NCERT, Bipan Chandra, Spectrum and official records. Historians differ on some dates, figures and interpretations, so check your exam syllabus and a standard textbook. Found a mistake? Tell us.