The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party or simply the Congress, is a political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Empire in Asia and Africa. From the late 19th century, and especially after 1920, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress became the principal leader of the Indian independence movement. The Congress led India to independence from the United Kingdom, and significantly influenced other anti-colonial nationalist movements in the British Empire.
Chaudhary Charan Singh, better known as Charan Singh was an Indian politician and a freedom fighter. Singh was principally known for his land and agricultural reform initiatives. He briefly served as the prime minister of India from July 1979 to August 1979 and was Member of Parliament (MP) for Baghpat. During prime ministership he was a member of the Janata Party (Secular). He served as 5th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh as a member of Bhartiya Kranti Dal. He also briefly served as deputy prime minister of India from January 1979 to July 1979 as a member of the Janata Party. Singh is widely regarded as the "Champion of farmers", after his life has been dedicated to advocating for the wellbeing and rights of farmers.
Vishwanath Pratap Singh, shortened to V. P. Singh, was an Indian politician who was the Prime Minister of India from 1989 to 1990 and the 41st Raja Bahadur of Manda.
Haradanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda is an Indian politician who served as the prime minister of India from 1 June 1996 to 21 April 1997. He was previously the 14th Chief Minister of Karnataka from 1994 to 1996. He presently is a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha representing Karnataka. He is the national president of the Janata Dal (Secular) party. Born in a farming family, he joined the Indian National Congress party in 1953, and remained a member until 1962. He was imprisoned during the Emergency. He became President of the state unit of Janata Dal in 1994, and was considered to be a driving force in the party's victory in Karnataka. He served as the 8th Chief Minister of Karnataka from 1994 to 1996. In the 1996 general elections, no party won enough seats to form a government. When the United Front, a coalition of regional parties, formed the central government with the support of the Congress, Deve Gowda was unexpectedly chosen to head the government after V. P. Singh and Jyoti Basu declined the post and he was elected Prime Minister. During his tenure as prime minister, he also served as Home Minister for some time. His prime ministerial tenure lasted for less than a year. After his prime ministerial tenure, he was elected to the 12th (1998), 14th (2004), 15th, and 16th Lok Sabha, as Member of Parliament for the Hassan Lok Sabha constituency. He lost Lok Sabha elections in 2019 from Tumkuru but has been elected to Rajya Sabha since.
Janata Dal was an Indian political party which was formed through the merger of Janata Party factions, the Lok Dal, Indian National Congress (Jagjivan), and the Jan Morcha united on 11 October 1988 on the birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan under the leadership of V. P. Singh.
General elections were held in India in four phases between 20 April and 10 May 2004. Over 670 million people were eligible to vote, electing 543 members of the 14th Lok Sabha. Seven states also held assembly elections to elect state governments. They were the first elections fully carried out with electronic voting machines.
Giani Zail Singh was an Indian politician from Punjab who served as the seventh president of India from 1982 to 1987 and 9th Chief Minister of Punjab. He was the first Sikh to become president.
The Indian National Congress was established when 72 representatives from all over the country met at Bombay in 1885. Prominent delegates included Dadabhai Naoroji, Surendranath Banerjee, Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta, W. C. Banerjee, S. Ramaswami Mudaliar, S. Subramania Iyer, and Romesh Chunder Dutt. The Englishman Allan Octavian Hume, a former British civil servant, was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress.
Chaudhary Ajit Singh was an Indian farmer leader and politician. He was the founder and chief of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, a political party recognised in the state of Uttar Pradesh. He was son of the former Prime Minister of India Chaudhary Charan Singh. He tested positive for COVID-19 and was subsequently admitted to a hospital in Gurugram. He died on 6 May 2021 after his condition deteriorated.
Raghunath Jha was an Indian politician who was Union minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprise and member of the 14th Lok Sabha of India. He represented the Bettiah constituency of Bihar and was a member of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) political party. Born in Village Amba Ojha Tola, in Sheohar He started his career by becoming the Mukhiya of his home panchayat in the year 1967. Thereafter, in 1967 he became Chairman of Zila Parishad. He started his legislative career in 1972 when he was elected as a MLA on Congress Ticket. He was elected from Sheohar for a record six consecutive terms before 1998. He was twice elected as a Member of Parliament from Gopalganj and Bettiah respectively.
Vidya Charan Shukla was an Indian politician whose political career spanned six decades. He was predominantly a member of the Indian National Congress, but also had spells in Jan Morcha, Janata Dal, Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya), Nationalist Congress Party and Bharatiya Janata Party. He was known as a close associate of Indira Gandhi.
General elections were held in India on 22 and 26 November 1989 to elect the members of the ninth Lok Sabha. The incumbent Indian National Congress (Indira) government under the premiership of Rajiv Gandhi lost its mandate, even though it was still the largest single party in the Lok Sabha. V. P. Singh, the leader of the second largest party Janata Dal was invited by the President of India to form the government. The government was formed with outside support from the Bharatiya Janata Party and Communist parties led by CPI(M). V. P. Singh was sworn in as the seventh Prime Minister of India on 2 December 1989.
General elections were held in India on 27 April, 2 May and 7 May 1996 to elect the members of the eleventh Lok Sabha. The elections resulted in a hung parliament with no single party having a clear majority. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which had won the most seats, formed a short-lived government under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. However, two weeks later the United Front coalition was able to secure a parliamentary majority and H. D. Deve Gowda of Janata Dal became prime minister. In 1997 Inder Kumar Gujral, also from the United Front, succeeded Gowda as prime minister. Due to the instability, early elections were held in 1998. The elections were the first since 1980 in which every states' seats were elected in a single election period.
Phanindranath Rangarajan Kumaramangalam was a prominent politician of the Indian National Congress and later the Bharatiya Janata Party and a Member of parliament, Lok Sabha from the Salem constituency from 1984 to 1996 and Tiruchirapalli constituency from 1998 to 2000. He served as the Minister of State for Law, Justice and Company Affairs in the P. V. Narasimha Rao government from July 1991 to December 1993 and as the Union Minister for Power in the Vajpayee Government from 1998 to 2000. He was the grandson of former Chief Minister of Madras, P. Subbarayan and the nephew of former Indian Chief of Army, General P. P. Kumaramangalam.
Chandra Shekhar, also known as Jananayak, was an Indian politician who served as the Prime Minister of India, between 10 November 1990 and 21 June 1991. He headed a minority government of a breakaway faction of the Janata Dal with outside support from the Indian National Congress. He was the first Indian Prime Minister who had never held any prior government office.
Ram Sundar Das was an Indian politician and former Chief Minister of Bihar state. He was a two-time Member of Parliament from Hajipur constituency.
The Leader of the House in Lok Sabha is the parliamentary chairperson of the party that holds a majority in the Lok Sabha and is responsible for government business in the house. The office holder is usually the prime minister if prime minister is a member of the house. If the prime minister is not a member of the Lok Sabha, usually the senior-most minister in the union cabinet serves as the leader of the house.
Legislative Assembly elections were held in the Indian state of West Bengal in 1996. The election took place simultaneously with the 1996 Indian general election. This was the last election Jyoti Basu contested, as he retired from politics in 2000.
Vishwanath Pratap Singh held office for slightly less than a year, from 2 December 1989 to 10 November 1990. After state legislative elections in March 1990, Singh's governing coalition achieved control of both houses of India's parliament. Singh becomes the 7th Prime Minister of India, after the loss of Rajiv Gandhi in the 1989 Indian general election. Singh's newly formed National Front (India) won 143 seats in the Lok Sabha and was supported by Bharatiya Janata Party from outside.
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