Bande Mataram

Autocratic Trickery

12-September-1906

It is announced that Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji has accepted Babu Bhupendranath's offer of the Presidentship of the National Congress at Calcutta. No one was likely to oppose Mr. Naoroji as a President and had the proposal been brought forward constitutionally in the Reception Committee the supporters of Mr. Tilak would have consented to postpone his name till the next year. But the Secret Cabal which is managing affairs in defiance of all rule and practice, were determined to score a

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party success and to use Mr. Naoroji, without his knowledge, as a tool for their ignoble purpose. They would face the supporters of Mr. Tilak with an accomplished fact, which they must either accept or incur the odium of opposing an universally respected name. They have followed a similar method with regard to the Exhibition which they have practically sold to the Government for a price. In this way, the Reception Committee is being turned into a farce and when they allow it to meet, it will find itself without occupation as all its functions have been performed for it behind its back. It becomes therefore the imperative duty of all who have any desire for national control over the national assembly to demand a settled elective constitution not only for the Congress but for every Congress body and law for its procedure which the leaders shall not be allowed to violate unless they are prepared to face a public impeachment from the platform of the Congress.