Enforcement Officer / Accounts Officer (EO/AO) 2020 recruitment test, advertisement 421. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, NMJX-U-GTA); answer as per the official UPSC final answer key. This question is in Part B. Answer last reviewed 24 August 2026.

Who among the following was the founder of Swatantra Party ?

(a)C. Rajagopalachari
(b)Deen Dayal Upadhyaya
(c)Shyama Prasad Mukherjee
(d)Acharya Narendra Dev

Answer

Why

Correct — A, (a) C. Rajagopalachari.

Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, known everywhere as Rajaji, founded the Swatantra Party on 4 June 1959. He was by then eighty and had held almost every high office the country could offer — Premier of the Madras Presidency, Governor of West Bengal, the last Governor-General of India and the only Indian to hold that post, Union Home Minister, Chief Minister of Madras State, and one of the earliest recipients of the Bharat Ratna in 1954.

The party was founded in reaction to a specific decision. At its Nagpur session in January 1959 the Congress passed a resolution on cooperative joint farming and state trading in foodgrains, which Rajaji read as a step towards collectivisation of agriculture. The Swatantra Party was his answer to it, and its platform was classical liberalism: a market economy, security of private property, and opposition to Nehruvian state planning and to the licence-and-permit system that planning had produced. That made it the only party of the period arguing against economic controls from the right of the Congress rather than from its left.

Its founding drew in figures from several traditions — Minoo Masani, N. G. Ranga, who served as its president for several years, K. M. Munshi, Darshan Singh Pheruman and Bezawada Ramachandra Reddy. Its best result came at the general election of 1967, when it won forty-four Lok Sabha seats and about 8.7 per cent of the vote, making it the single largest opposition party in the Fourth Lok Sabha. It declined after Rajagopalachari’s death in 1972 and merged into Charan Singh’s Bharatiya Lok Dal in 1974.

What the item is really testing is whether a candidate can attach the right founder to the right party among the non-Congress parties of the 1950s, and the three wrong options are the founders and leaders of the other two.

Why the others are wrong

(b)Deen Dayal Upadhyaya — Deen Dayal Upadhyaya belongs to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, not the Swatantra Party. He was the Jana Sangh’s first general secretary and later its president, and he is remembered above all as the author of Integral Humanism, the philosophy he set out in 1965 and which the party adopted as its doctrine. He did not found the Jana Sangh either — that was Syama Prasad Mookerjee, in 1951 — so the option is doubly displaced. The two parties are easy to confuse because both opposed the Congress from outside the socialist tradition and both grew in the same years, but they were not the same kind of party: the Swatantra Party’s case against the Congress was economic, while the Jana Sangh’s was cultural and national.
(c)Shyama Prasad Mukherjee — Syama Prasad Mookerjee — the booklet prints the name as Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, one of the several spellings in use — founded the BHARATIYA JANA SANGH in 1951, eight years before the Swatantra Party. He had earlier been a minister in Nehru’s first cabinet and resigned from it, and he had been associated with the Hindu Mahasabha. This is the sharpest of the three wrong options, because the candidate who knows that a major non-Congress party was founded in the 1950s by a senior figure of national standing has two such parties and two such founders to choose between. The dates separate them cleanly: Jana Sangh 1951 under Mookerjee, Swatantra 1959 under Rajagopalachari.
(d)Acharya Narendra Dev — Acharya Narendra Dev belongs to the socialist tradition, which is the opposite pole from the Swatantra Party’s. He was a founder and the principal theorist of the Congress Socialist Party, formed within the Congress in 1934, and he later led the Praja Socialist Party after the socialists left the Congress. A party formed to resist state planning and cooperative farming would have had no place for him. He also served as Vice-Chancellor of Lucknow University and of the Banaras Hindu University. The option is included to complete the map of the non-Congress opposition of the period — liberal, Hindu nationalist and socialist — and to catch a candidate who is matching on ‘a party founded by an eminent man outside the Congress’ without asking what the party stood for.

Concept

The party system of the first two decades after independence was dominated by the Congress, with an opposition divided into three distinct traditions. Sorting the founders by tradition is what answers questions of this kind.

THE LIBERAL RIGHT. The SWATANTRA PARTY, founded by C. Rajagopalachari on 4 June 1959 in reaction to the Congress’s Nagpur resolution of January 1959 on cooperative joint farming and state trading in foodgrains. Its programme was a market economy, private property and opposition to the licence-and-permit system. Minoo Masani, N. G. Ranga, K. M. Munshi, Darshan Singh Pheruman and Bezawada Ramachandra Reddy were among its founders, and Ranga was its president for several years. It won forty-four Lok Sabha seats and about 8.7 per cent of the vote in 1967, its best performance, becoming the largest opposition party in the Fourth Lok Sabha; it declined after Rajagopalachari’s death in 1972 and merged into the Bharatiya Lok Dal in 1974.

THE HINDU NATIONALIST STRAND. The BHARATIYA JANA SANGH, founded by Syama Prasad Mookerjee in 1951, with Deen Dayal Upadhyaya as its first general secretary and later its president. Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism of 1965 became its doctrine.

THE SOCIALISTS. The CONGRESS SOCIALIST PARTY, formed within the Congress in 1934 with Acharya Narendra Dev and Jayaprakash Narayan among its leading figures, and after 1948 the Socialist Party and then the Praja Socialist Party outside it.

ABOUT RAJAGOPALACHARI HIMSELF, since these papers ask about him from several directions. He lived from 10 December 1878 to 25 December 1972. He was Premier of the Madras Presidency after the elections of 1937 and Chief Minister of Madras State in the 1950s; Governor-General of India from 21 June 1948 to 26 January 1950, the last holder of the office and the only Indian to hold it; Union Home Minister; and a recipient of the Bharat Ratna in 1954. In 1944 he produced the C. R. Formula, his proposed basis for a settlement between the Congress and the Muslim League, which Gandhi put to Jinnah at the Bombay talks of September that year and which Jinnah rejected. He had resigned from Congress office in 1942 over the Pakistan question and Quit India, and left the party finally in 1957, two years before founding the Swatantra Party.

This item sits in the current affairs and general knowledge block of Part B rather than in the modern-history blocks, which is a reminder that a paper’s subject boundaries are looser than a syllabus suggests. Post-independence political history is examined on these papers alongside pre-independence history and can appear in either place.

The question is single-fact recall with bare names for options, so nothing can be reasoned out from the option text. What can be done is to place each name in a tradition. Once the four names are sorted — one liberal, two from the Jana Sangh, one socialist — the answer follows from knowing what the Swatantra Party was FOR. That is the more durable form of the knowledge, because it also answers the reverse question, which asks for the party a named figure founded.

The option set is well constructed in one particular respect. Two of the four names belong to the same party, which means a candidate who has narrowed the field to ‘the non-Congress opposition of the 1950s’ has gained nothing at all. Only a candidate who separates the Swatantra Party from the Bharatiya Jana Sangh — by year, by founder, and by what each stood for — can choose. This is a common construction, and it is worth recognising: when two options plainly belong together, they are usually both wrong, because a well-set item cannot have two answers.

Key facts

C. Rajagopalachari founded the Swatantra Party on 4 June 1959; it was dissolved in 1974.
The immediate provocation was the Congress’s Nagpur session resolution of January 1959 on cooperative joint farming and state trading in foodgrains.
Its platform was a market economy and opposition to Nehruvian state planning and the licence-and-permit system.
Founding members included Minoo Masani, N. G. Ranga, K. M. Munshi, Darshan Singh Pheruman and Bezawada Ramachandra Reddy; Ranga was its president for several years.
At the general election of 1967 it won forty-four Lok Sabha seats and about 8.7 per cent of the vote, the largest opposition party in the Fourth Lok Sabha.
It declined after Rajagopalachari’s death in 1972 and merged into Charan Singh’s Bharatiya Lok Dal in 1974.
Rajagopalachari lived from 10 December 1878 to 25 December 1972 and received the Bharat Ratna in 1954.
He was Governor-General of India from 21 June 1948 to 26 January 1950 — the last holder of the office and the only Indian to hold it.
He authored the C. R. Formula of 1944, which Gandhi put to Jinnah and Jinnah rejected.
The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was founded in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mookerjee, with Deen Dayal Upadhyaya as first general secretary and later president; Upadhyaya set out Integral Humanism in 1965.
Acharya Narendra Dev was a founder and theorist of the Congress Socialist Party of 1934 and later led the Praja Socialist Party.

Three opposition traditions of the 1950s, and who founded which

C. Rajagopalachari — the LIBERAL RIGHT→Founded the Swatantra Party on 4 June 1959, in reaction to the Congress’s Nagpur session resolution of January 1959 on cooperative joint farming and state trading in foodgrains, which he read as a step towards the collectivisation of agriculture. Its platform was classical liberalism — a market economy, security of private property, and opposition to Nehruvian state planning and to the licence-and-permit system. It was the only party of the period arguing against economic controls from the RIGHT of the Congress rather than from its left.

Syama Prasad Mookerjee — the HINDU NATIONALIST strand→Founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951, eight years before the Swatantra Party. The booklet prints the name as Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, one of several spellings in use. This is the sharpest wrong option, because a candidate who knows that a major non-Congress party of this era was founded by a former minister may attach the wrong party to the name — he had been a minister in Nehru’s first cabinet and resigned from it.

Deen Dayal Upadhyaya→Doubly displaced: he belongs to the Jana Sangh, and he did not found even that. He was its first general secretary and later its president, and is remembered above all for Integral Humanism, the philosophy he set out in 1965 and which the party adopted as its doctrine.

Acharya Narendra Dev — the SOCIALISTS→The opposite pole from the Swatantra Party. A founder and the principal theorist of the Congress Socialist Party, formed within the Congress in 1934, and later leader of the Praja Socialist Party after the socialists left the Congress. A party formed to resist state planning and cooperative farming would have had no place for him.

What the Swatantra Party became→Its founders included Minoo Masani, N. G. Ranga — its president for several years — K. M. Munshi, Darshan Singh Pheruman and Bezawada Ramachandra Reddy. Its best result came at the general election of 1967: forty-four Lok Sabha seats and about 8.7 per cent of the vote, making it the single largest opposition party in the Fourth Lok Sabha. It declined after Rajagopalachari’s death in 1972 and merged into Charan Singh’s Bharatiya Lok Dal in 1974.

Rajaji himself→1878–1972, and eighty years old when he founded the party — which is what makes the act notable, because he came to it from the very centre of Congress politics: Premier of the Madras Presidency, Governor of West Bengal, the last Governor-General of India and the only Indian ever to hold that office, Union Home Minister, Chief Minister of Madras State, and one of the earliest recipients of the Bharat Ratna in 1954.

Study next

The party system of the first two decades after independence: the Congress system and the three strands of opposition.C. Rajagopalachari’s career — the Madras premiership, the Governor-Generalship, the C. R. Formula and the Swatantra Party.The Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya’s Integral Humanism.The socialist tradition: the Congress Socialist Party of 1934, the Socialist Party, the Praja Socialist Party and the Samyukta Socialist Party.The general elections of 1952, 1957, 1962 and 1967, and the results that broke the Congress dominance.Economic policy debates of the Nehru years — the Industrial Policy Resolutions, the Mahalanobis strategy, cooperative farming and the licence system.

Common traps

Confusing the Swatantra Party with the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Swatantra was founded in 1959 by Rajagopalachari; the Jana Sangh in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mookerjee.
Naming Deen Dayal Upadhyaya as a founder of the Jana Sangh. He was its first general secretary and later its president, but Mookerjee founded it.
Placing a socialist leader at the head of a party formed to oppose state planning. Acharya Narendra Dev belonged to the opposite tradition.
Assuming that opposition to the Congress meant one thing. The Swatantra critique was economic, the Jana Sangh’s cultural, and the socialists’ was that the Congress had not gone far enough.
Overlooking that two options in the set belong to the same party, which means neither can be the answer.

Post-independence political history is asked on EPFO EO/AO papers as founder-and-party recall, as a question on when a party was formed, or as an identification of a doctrine such as Integral Humanism. The option sets are drawn from the same generation of leaders, so a candidate cannot narrow by period. The efficient preparation is a short table of the non-Congress parties from 1934 to 1977 — party, year, founder, principal doctrine, and the party it later merged into — since the merger years supply a further family of questions in their own right.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q74Open & attempt →

Who among the following was not a member of the Socialist group in the Congress Party ?

(a) Jayaprakash Narayan
(b) Rajendra Prasad
(c) N.G. Ranga
(d) Narendra Dev

Answer(b) Rajendra Prasad

The item asking which of four leaders was NOT of the Socialist group in the Congress — it names both N. G. Ranga, who became president of the Swatantra Party, and Narendra Dev, a distractor here, so the two items map the same political generation from opposite ends.

EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q33Open & attempt →

Who among the following was the President of the Indian National Congress at the time of independence of India ?

(a) Pattabhi Sitaramayya
(b) Jawaharlal Nehru
(c) Abul Kalam Azad
(d) J.B. Kripalani

Answer(d) J.B. Kripalani

The Congress-presidency item, which covers the party leadership at independence — the point from which the opposition traditions tested here separated out.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The Swatantra Party was founded in 1959 chiefly in opposition to which one of the following ?
- (a)The reorganisation of States on linguistic lines
- (b)The Congress resolution at Nagpur on cooperative joint farming and state trading in foodgrains
- (c)The abolition of the privy purses
- (d)The nationalisation of the banks
Answer(b) The Congress resolution at Nagpur on cooperative joint farming and state trading in foodgrains — passed in January 1959, it was read by Rajagopalachari as a step towards the collectivisation of agriculture, and the party was founded five months later. The abolition of the privy purses and bank nationalisation both came later, at the end of the 1960s.
practice — not a real PYQ
Who among the following founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951 ?
- (a)Deen Dayal Upadhyaya
- (b)Syama Prasad Mookerjee
- (c)C. Rajagopalachari
- (d)Minoo Masani
Answer(b) Syama Prasad Mookerjee — Deen Dayal Upadhyaya was the party's first general secretary and later its president, and the author of Integral Humanism, but the founder was Mookerjee. Rajagopalachari and Masani belong to the Swatantra Party of 1959.

Why