Talk:Indian National Congress

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[edit] Volker not so important

Volker report is not such an important event in the life of the Congress party. There are many other probes such as Bofors scandal and many more corruption scandals that should be discussed. Volker is too minor to be dicussed here. Its important for Natwar Singh, not for the Congress party so much.

[edit] Allan Octavian Hume

It says that Hume was an Englishman. Is this the case? I thought he was Scottish. will investigate and change if so (and if I remember to do so). Big Jim Fae Scotland

He was Scottish, from Glasgow.

[edit] The Dangerous Plot by NDA

The NDA want to start teasing the NPA government and it's intentions are clear that is to prevent nation's growth under NPA. I request the congress party/NPA to start accounting their activities. Whenever they do any domenstation with wrong intentions, NPA should put the nation's loss in the form of value and make the data available to the people of India.

Let the people of India decided who is for what??

I am sure this meassure will definately chage their attitute towords NPA and government.

It's my suggestion.

Thnkx Santosh

This is not the place for such unfounded accusations. If you have some comments about the article, please post them.

[edit] why two election symbols?

someone who knows the subject should decide and remove one.

--Xorkl000 13:23, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

the hand can be used with or without a tricolour background.

[edit] Picture wanted

Can someone help with a copyright free image of Allan Octavian Hume. Shyamal 04:21, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Election box metadata

This article contains some sub-pages that hold metadata about this subject. This metadata is used by the Election box templates to display the color of the party and its name in Election candidate and results tables.

These links provide easy access to this meta data:

Template:Indian National Congress/meta/color Content:
Template:Indian National Congress/meta/shortname Content: Congress

[edit] "Decline"

Please refrain from re-adding this as it is clearly OR. While there is no question that some of the events mentioned have occurred, to summarise a thirty-year process of political change in terms of the 'decline' of one party is OR and almost certainly POV. Thanks. Hornplease 08:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of sources

I am surprised that there are absolutely no sources cited for this article.--Shahab 19:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separate Stub for Presidents of the Party

I am proposing a separate page for the list of presidents of the congress party. I believe the list is farely long and its current location inside the article is distracting. Sumanch 20:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Troubling NPOV Violations

I have written a bit on India, and I have come to know something about its politics. Congress used to have primary elections to select district candidates, but this practice lapsed after the rise of Indira Ghandi. The fact is that Congress was historically democratic, internally and externally, but these tendencies declined over the last few decades. The material in the piece is too negative using terms like "most undemocratic party" and "never held elections." This suggests that the author is an opponent of Congress.--Jackkalpakian 15:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for confirming that the district level primary election practices lapsed after the rise of Indira Ghandi. And that is the key point. This party created by Mrs. Indira Gandhi has never held party elections. The author of those changes is a Gandhian (follower of M. K. Gandhi) and not a supporter of any political party. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.19.86.199 (talk) 06:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the bit about "most undemocratic party" is way too over the top. I'm gonna remove it. Amit@Talk 15:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Today I have gotten boost from Mr. Rajiv Sreenivasan who has gone even beyond. To quote him

"The correct name for what goes on is 'kleptocracy' -- rule by thieves. Or perhaps it is even a 'kakistocracy' -- rule by the very worst possible people." Please see rediff.com.

Edior Jackkalpakian only claims "Congress was historically democratic". This is in complete agreement with I have written. INC was democratic. But Congress-I has NOT been democratic since its inception in the late 60s (or last few decades).

Even the current Nuclear fiasco is a direct result of the undemocratic attitudes of the Congress-I: they didn't even include their allies in the talks with the US. Contrast that to non-Congress-I goverments like that of NDA: in the late 90s the joint parliamentary commission sent to US over these nuclear matters was in fact headed by I.K. Gujral - an opponent of NDA at that time (Not sure if he has changed his opposition now).

Let us look at what transpired over the last weekend. A felicitiation party was held in New Delhi to congratulate The Dalai Lama on his getting awarded the highest civilian honor in the US. The Congress-I leadership barred their ministers from attending this function. Is that Democratic?

One might be tempted to say : "hey look they do have an alliance with so many parties, isn't that democratic?". They are in alliance only because the alliance is necessary to hold on to power: they didn't win enough seats. They didn't get into alliance to be democratic.

Another might be tempted to say that "hey, their MLAs and MPS were elceted by the people. So it is still some form of democracy". No, all contestants for these elecsions are APPOINTED by the party leadership. So, the pool of MLAs and MPs contnues to be a subset of the original appointees and hence they continue to be appointess of the party. During Mr. Rajiv Gandhi's tenure new rules were passed to suppress any dissidence from these appointed MLAs and MPs by making it a law that at least 1/3 should suport dissidence. This rule wipes out even a remote chance that these appointed MLAs and MPs might change attitudes and become democratic.

Please show some instances in which Congress-I has behaved in a democratic way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.175.34.52 (talk) 17:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A criticism section must be included.

By no stretch of imagination is the Congress party immune to criticism. A criticism section would balance the article and add value to its encyclopedic content. B Nambiar 11:11, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. A cricism section should also be added to the BJP article, besides a reference to the Gujarat Violence, as is done for the Anti-Sikh riots in this article. Amit@Talk 10:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

BTW, this article does have a "Political accusations" section. Amit@Talk 09:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

'Criticism' chapters are generally a bad idea, they tend to become slushbuckets for general accusations, and the selection criteria is often the private pov of wikipedians. 'Criticism' can be divided into two types: 1) criticism against policy, which is generally superflous, as it is implicitly understood that political parties are subject to constant accusations from competing political parties, 2) issues like the anti-sikh riots should be in the history section on the party. --Soman (talk) 10:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What the ...

The opening paragraph goes on about how the "party died" and cow and calf symbol were frozen. And on the sidebar it shows the symbol of Congress as the hand, and says the president is Sonia Gandhi. What's really going on here? Amit@Talk 11:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead section can be improved

The lead section says a lot about an article. The current opening sentence in the lead is puzzling and probably leaves people scratching their heads.

Indian National Congress-I (also known as the Congress Party and abbreviated INC) is a major nationalist party in India & rival nationalist party are BJP,CPI-M etc. Created in 1885 by Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji and Sir Dinshaw Edulji Wacha, the Indian National Congress became the nation's leader in the Independence Movement, with over 15 million Indians involved in its organizations and over 70 million participants in its struggle against the British Empire. After independence in 1947, it became the nation's dominant political party, only challenged for leadership and food in more recent decades. In the 14th Lok Sabha (2004-2009), 145 Iacd members, the largest contingent amongst all parties, serve in the house. The party is currently the chief member of the ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition.

I propose:

Indian National Congress-I (also known as the Congress Party and abbreviated as INC) is a major political party in India. Created in 1885, by Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji and Sir Dinshaw Edulji Wacha, the Indian National Congress became the leader in the Indian independence movement, with over 15 million Indians involved in its organizations and over 70 million participants in its struggle against the British Empire. After independence in 1947, it became the nation's dominant political party, only challenged for leadership and food in more recent decades. In the 14th Lok Sabha (2004-2009), 145 IACD members, the largest contingent amongst all parties, serve in the house. The party is the chief member of the United Progressive Alliance coalition, currently in government.

some points:

There is no reason why the fact that Congress-I is a nationalistic government cannot be cited. If a party statement or other reliable source about the party cannot be cited here, the word nationalist has to go. In any case, Congress-I is a major political party, nationalist or not.
Why should BJP be mentioned in the lead? If it should be mentioned, it should be made clear what relates BJP and Congress-I. Is it the fact that both BJP and Congress-I are nationalist parties? Does any reputable, published source mention the relationship? Unless there is a source, the part has to go as well.
There is no excuse for the date of establishment not being cited. There must be hundreds of reliable sources at least mentioning the date, at least in passing.
How did Congress-I become a dominant political party only after independence? Did it not call itself a political party before that? Was it not dominant before 1947? This is not a major issue. However, the word "became" can be replaced by a better alternative, if found.
What is IACD? Is it Indian_Association_of_Chiropractic_Doctors? If so, we should wikilink it.
One wikilink changed from Sir Dinshaw Edulji Wachato Sir Dinshaw Edulji Wacha.

Please feel free to edit any part of this edit. We can improve the lead.

Sincerely,

Kushal 15:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)