While Surendranath Banerjea was busy in organizing the conference at Calcutta, a retired British official- Allan Octavian Hume, convened a meeting at Bombay. In this, he received the cooperation of the important Indian leaders. The meeting was held at the Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College from 18-31 December 1885. This became the Indian National Congress. It was presided over by Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee and attended by seventy-two delegates representing all parts of India. The Congress was attended by such eminent leaders as Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, S Subramania Iyer, Dinshaw Wacha, Kashinath Trimbak Telang, P Ananda Charlu, Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, M Veeraraghavachariar, G Subramania Iyer, N G Chandavarkar and Rahmatullah Sayani.

The Indian National Congress was founded by A O Hume with a selfish motive. He wanted to create a FORUM which was under the supervision of the British and which should let the British government know the demands of the Indian people. He wanted to prevent another nationwide outbreak like the one that took place in AD 1857.

The Congress had very modest beginnings. It held its sessions all over India once a year, usually in the month of December. In its early YEARS, MANY Englishmen were associated with it. Some of them were men like GEORGE Yule, William Weddeerburn, Alfred Webb and Henry Cotton. In its early years, the main objectives of the Congress were:

1. To bring together leaders from all parts of the country.

2. To remove prejudices of race, religion and region.

3. To discuss problems relating to India.

4. To chalk out an action plan to get CONCESSIONS from the British.