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Who founded the Swaraj Party within the Indian National Congress?

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Mahatma Gandhi, holding a walking stick, walks beside Sarojini Naidu during the Salt March protest in 1930, with several men following behind them. — Indian National Congress Indian National Congress leaders Mahatma Gandhi (left) and Sarojini Naidu (right) on the Salt March in western India, March 1930.

The Swaraj Party was established in late 1922 and early 1923 by two prominent members of the Indian National Congress: Motilal Nehru, a wealthy lawyer from northern India, and Chitta Ranjan Das, a nationalist politician from Bengal.12

The party was formed as a political faction within the Congress while Mohandas K. Gandhi was imprisoned following the suspension of the noncooperation movement. The founders sought to contest elections for the Central Legislative Assembly to disrupt British policy from within the council chambers, offering an alternative, more pragmatic tactic to the noncooperation strategy favored by the Congress leadership at the time.21