Indian National Democratic Congress

The Congress Reform Committee was formed by a group of dissidents that left the Indian National Congress in the Madras State. The CRC was led by C. Rajagopalachari, who had been defeated by Kamaraj in the inner-party disputes over leadership of the Congress in Tamil Nadu. CRC was formed just one month before the 1957 elections to the Lok Sabha and the Madras state legislative assembly.

Soon CRC began cooperation with the All India Forward Bloc of U. Muthuramalingam Thevar. The CRC-AIFB combine contested 59 seats in the assembly election (54 candidates from CRC, 5 candidates from AIFB. One of the five AIFB candidates, P.K. Mookiah Thevar, stood as a CRC candidate). There was also an informal understanding with the Communist Party of India, which decided not to contest against the CRC in some constituencies.

The CRC-AIFB combine formulated a 12-point election manifesto. The CRC-AIFB alliance emerged as the major opposition alliance in these elections, but could not defeat the Congress government. CRC won 14 seats and AIFB three. Half of the seats won were from the Ramnad and Madurai districts.

Following the election, a joint 'CRC opposition' group was formed in the legislative assembly. This was done to counter the bid of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (which had 16 seats) to hold the post of leader of opposition. Soon five independent assembly members joined the CRC opposition group. V.K. Ramaswamy Mudaliar was elected leader of the 'CRC opposition'.

On September 28-29, 1957 CRC...
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