RAS question
Subhas Chandra Bose defeated whom in the Congress presidential election of 1939?
Correct answer: (D) Pattabhi Sitaramayya.
Subhas Chandra Bose defeated Dr Pattabhi Sitaramayya in the 1939 Congress presidential election.
Explanation
At the Tripuri session in 1939, Subhas Chandra Bose won a contested Congress presidential election against Dr Pattabhi Sitaramayya. The significance of the result lay not only in the name of the defeated candidate, but also in the politics around him: Sitaramayya was Gandhi's preferred candidate. Gandhi's own statement after the result confirms the point, saying that Bose had achieved a decisive victory over Dr Pattabhi Sitaramayya and that, because Gandhi had been instrumental in asking Pattabhi not to withdraw, the defeat was more Gandhi's than Pattabhi's. That is why RAS questions often frame this fact through the line, "Pattabhi's defeat is my defeat."
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) Rajendra Prasad was not Bose's opponent in the 1939 Congress presidential election described in the source and explanation.
- (B) Jawaharlal Nehru was not the candidate defeated by Bose in this contested Congress presidential election.
- (C) Sardar Patel is not named as Bose's opponent in this election; the contest was against Dr Pattabhi Sitaramayya.
Concept
This tests the internal politics of the Indian National Congress in the late 1930s, especially the Bose-Gandhi divide around the Tripuri session. It recurs in RAS because a single election fact captures leadership conflict, ideology and Congress organisation before the Second World War.