Until independence the locus of power in the Indian National Congress clearly rested with the Congress President and his Working Committee. With the formation of the Interim Government, however, the Congress was faced with the critical problem of determining how the Congress movement could be adopted to its dual role in the new republic. Specifically what was to be the relation between the Congress in its new function as ruling party and the Congress in its other function as mass organisation ? In the process of evolving a workable relationship between the two, the Congress was confronted by demands from the mass movement for the direct control of the parliamentary leadership and the government policy-making process.