was made the president to rebuild the INC. Disputes between the party and the Government over procedural matters affected his relationship with the colleagues in the Government. As Congress President and the election of 1950 In spite of being ideologically at odds with both Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru – he was elected Congress President for the crucial years around Indian independence in 1947. After Gandhi's assassination in January 1948, Nehru rejected his demand that the party's views should be sought in all decisions. Nehru, with the support of Patel, told Kripalani that while the party was entitled to lay down the broad principles and guidelines, it could not be granted a say in the government's day-to-day affairs. This precedent became central to the relationship between government and the ruling party in subsequent decades. Nehru, however, supported Kripalani in the election of the Congress President in 1950. Kripalani, supported by Nehru, was defeated by Patel's candidate Purushottam Das Tandon. Bruised by his defeat, and disillusioned by what he viewed as the abandonment of the Gandhian ideal of a countless village republics, Kripalani left the Congress and became one of the founders of the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party. This party subsequently merged with the Socialist Party of India to form the Praja Socialist Party. For a while it was even believed that Nehru, stung by the defeat, was considering abandoning the Congress as well; his several offers of resignation at the time were all, however, shouted down. A great many of the more progressive elements of the party left in the months following the election. Congress's subsequent bias to the right was only balanced when Nehru obtained the resignation of Tandon in the run-up to the general elections of 1951. 1961 Candidacy In October 1961, Kripalani contested the Lok Sabha seat of V. K. Krishna Menon, then serving as Minister of Defence, in a race that would come to attract extraordinary amounts of attention. The Sunday Standard observed of it that "no political campaign in India has ever been so bitter or so remarkable for the nuances it produced". Kripalani, who had previously endorsed Menon's foreign policy, devoted himself to attacking his vituperative opponent's personality, but ultimately lost the race, with Menon winning in a landslide. Socialist Party Kripalani remained in opposition for the rest of his life and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952 (lost General Election in