© 2026 LearnInShort
Sixty Sessions, But Only Ten That Matter for the Exam
The Indian National Congress met almost every year from 1885 to 1947, but no exam tests the full list. What gets asked, repeatedly and across SSC, BPSC, Railway and UPSC-pattern papers, is a small, fixed set of 'landmark' sessions — the ones that hosted a first, a split, a reunion, a pact, or a resolution students would recognise by name even outside a history class.
The trick to this chapter is recognising that it rewards memorising ten president-venue-year triples cold, not reading a general narrative. Once you can say 'Surat, 1907, the split' or 'Lahore, 1929, Nehru, Purna Swaraj' as fast as you'd say your own date of birth, the entire question type collapses into ten seconds of recall rather than reasoning.
1. Who presided over the first session of the Indian National Congress, held in Bombay in 1885?
2. At which session, presided over by Dadabhai Naoroji, was the word 'Swaraj' first publicly used as the Congress's goal?
3. What is the 1907 Surat session of the Congress chiefly remembered for?
4. The Lucknow Pact, which reunited the Moderates and Extremists and secured a Congress–Muslim League agreement, was concluded at the session of:
5. Who became the first woman to preside over an Indian National Congress session, at Calcutta in 1917?
6. Sarojini Naidu, who presided at Kanpur in 1925, holds which specific distinction?
7. Which session adopted the Purna Swaraj (Complete Independence) resolution, with Jawaharlal Nehru presiding?
8. The 1931 Karachi session, presided over by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, is chiefly remembered for adopting: