After the Chauri Chaura incident, Mahatma Gandhi withdrew the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1922.⁣ This was met with a lot of disagreements among leaders of the Congress Party.⁣
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While some wanted to continue non-cooperation, others wanted to end the legislature boycott and contest elections. These leaders included C R Das, Motilal Nehru, Srinivasa Iyengar, etc.⁣
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In 1922, in the Gaya session of the Congress, C R Das (who was presiding over the session) moved a proposal to enter the legislatures but it was defeated. Das and other leaders broke away from the Congress and formed the Swaraj Party.⁣
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C R Das was the President and the Secretary was Motilal Nehru. Prominent leaders of the Swaraj Party included N C Kelkar, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Subhas Chandra Bose.⁣
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The Congress-Khilafat Swarajya Party or the Swaraj Party aimed for: ⁣
•Attaining dominion status,⁣
•Obtaining the right to frame a constitution,⁣
•Establishing control over the bureaucracy,⁣
•Obtaining full provincial autonomy,⁣
•Attaining Swarajya (self-rule), etc.⁣
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The Swaraj Party won 42 out of 104 seats to the Central Legislature in 1923. Swarajist Vithalbhai Patel became speaker of the Central Legislative Assembly in 1925.⁣
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Notably, party could not coordinate their struggle inside the Assembly with the mass freedom struggle outside.⁣
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The death of C R Das in 1925 further weakened the party and also there were internal divisions among the Swarajists. They were divided into the responsivists and the non-responsivists. ⁣
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The responsivists (M M Malaviya, Lala Lajpat Rai, N C Kelkar) wanted to cooperate with the government and hold offices, whereas the non-responsivists (Motilal Nehru) withdrew from legislatures in 1926.⁣
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Between 1929 and 1937, the Indian National Congress would declare the independence of India and launch the Salt Satyagraha. In this tumultuous period, the Swaraj Party was defunct as its members quietly dissolved into the Congress fold.⁣
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Note: In Madras Province, a different Madras Province Swarajya Party was established in 1923 by S. Sathyamurthy and S. Srinivasa Iyengar. This party later merged with the Congress in 1935.⁣