Indian National Congress (Congress Party)

What it is: The Indian National Congress held its first session in Bombay from 28 to 31 December 1885, organised by Allan Octavian Hume, with Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee presiding. It led the freedom movement and held national power from 1952 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1989. It governed again from 1991 to 1996 under P. V. Narasimha Rao, at first as a minority government short of a majority in the Lok Sabha (ThePrint, PTI; Wikipedia’s article on the 1991 election). Wikipedia’s Congress article calls it a coalition. From 2004 to 2014 it governed through the UPA coalition. Mallikarjun Kharge is its current president (Wikipedia).

Before 1947: A Congress committee visited Amritsar during the Akali campaign and praised the Akalis. When the Golden Temple keys were surrendered in January 1922, Gandhi telegraphed that the “first decisive battle for India’s freedom” had been won. At Lahore in December 1929, under Jawaharlal Nehru, the Congress working committee dropped the Nehru Report that the Central Sikh League had rejected, and the Congress adopted a motion that no constitutional solution which did not satisfy Sikhs and Muslims would be acceptable to it. On 17 March 1948 the Akali Dal’s working committee advised its legislators to join the Congress.

1984: The Congress had returned to power at the Centre in 1980. The army operation of 3 to 8 June 1984, in which the Akal Takht was badly damaged, was ordered by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. After her assassination on 31 October 1984, Sikhs were killed in Delhi and elsewhere. Human Rights Watch counts at least 2,733 Sikhs killed in Delhi in three days. Its 2014 report says affidavits and commission findings placed Congress leaders at the sites of attacks or linked them to instigating mobs, that only about 30 people were convicted, mostly low-ranking Congress supporters, and that the Nanavati Commission, whose report came in 2005, said the attacks were organised but recommended no further action against several Congress figures. It found “credible evidence” against Jagdish Tytler, whom the CBI cleared twice, and H.K.L. Bhagat was acquitted and died in 2005.

Key moments

• 11 August 2005: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the Rajya Sabha, “I bow my head in shame” and apologised “not only to the Sikh community but to the whole nation”. He said the Nanavati Commission had reached no conclusive findings on individuals and had debunked the claim that top Congress leaders were involved.
• January 2014: Rahul Gandhi, asked whether he would apologise to Sikhs, did not, but conceded that some Congress men might have been involved.
• 17 December 2018: the Delhi High Court convicted Sajjan Kumar, a senior Congress leader, of criminal conspiracy and abetment of murder, sentenced him to life, and called the 1984 killings crimes against humanity.
• February 2025: a Delhi court gave him a second life sentence, in the Saraswati Vihar case.
• 20 August 2026: Sajjan Kumar died at Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi, while serving his life sentences in Tihar jail.

The disputed question: Sikhs for Justice sued the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, in a US court on the claim that she shielded Congress members involved in the killings; the courts dismissed the case on jurisdiction and limitation grounds, not on the facts. The party’s own position, in Manmohan Singh’s words, is that there was no evidence against its top leadership. Panthic critics answer that the party, and not a handful of its members, bears responsibility. Both positions are on the record; the courts have so far convicted individuals.

Where it stands: Congress is India’s main opposition party, with 99 Lok Sabha seats after 2024. In Punjab it won 7 of the 13 seats that year, more than any other party. The next Punjab Assembly election is due in 2027.