Indian National Congress turns 134 years of age

As the Indian National Congress celebrates its 134th foundation day on Friday, here are 10 interesting facts about India’s oldest political party:

1. INC is one of the oldest political parties in the world. However Conservative Party of the UK and Republican and Democrat Party of the US are older

2. INC was mooted by a retired English civil servant A.O. Hume who favoured greater Indian participation in administration. Hume was a Botanist and Ornithologist who went back to England and donated his work and collections to the British Museum.

3. The first president of the INC was a Calcutta barrister Womesh Chandra Banerjee

4. Only 72 delegates attended the foundation meeting in 1885 in Bombay. The next Congress session in Calcutta attracted 400 delegates from across the country.

5. Five women have been Congress Presidents: Annie Besant, Sarojini Naidu, Nellie Sengupta, Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi

6. Eight Muslims were also elected Congress President: Badruddin Tyabji, Rahimtulla Sayani, Nawab Syed Muhammad Bahadur, Syed Hasan Imam, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Md. Ali Jouhar, Abul Kalam Azad and Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari.while the first Congress session after Independence was held at Jaipur in 1948

7. The last Congress session before Independence was held in Meerut in 1946

8. All but two Prime Ministers of India (Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi) have been members of the Congress. Seven Indian Prime Ministers have been elected from the party and six others had been former members. Jawaharlal Nehru, Gulzarilal Nanda, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh were active members of the party during their prime ministerial tenure. On the other hand, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, V P Singh, Chandra Sekhar, H D Deve Gowda, I K Gujral had been members of the Congress before their appointment.

9. Congress Governments have ruled at the Centre for 49 years after Independence

10. Rahul Gandhi is the 49th Congress President and the sixth from his family