<Li> The post-independence era, when the party has had a prominent place in Indian politics . </Li> <P> The Indian National Congress conducted its first session in Bombay from 28--31 December 1885 at the initiative of retired Civil service officer Allan Octavian Hume . In 1883, Hume had outlined his idea for a body representing Indian interests in an open letter to graduates of the University of Calcutta . Its aim was to obtain a greater share in government for educated Indians, and to create a platform for civic and political dialogue between them and the British Raj . Hume took the initiative, and in March 1885 a notice convening the first meeting of the Indian National Union to be held in Poona the following December was issued . Due to a cholera outbreak there, it was moved to Bombay . </P> <P> Hume organised the first meeting in Bombay with the approval of the Viceroy Lord Dufferin . Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee was the first president of Congress; the first session was attended by 72 delegates . Representing each province of India, the delegates comprised 54 Hindus and two Muslims; the rest were of Parsi and Jain backgrounds . Notable representatives included Scottish ICS officer William Wedderburn, Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta of the Bombay Presidency Association, Ganesh Vasudeo Joshi of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, social reformer and newspaper editor Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, Justice K.T. Telang, N.G. Chandavarkar, Dinshaw Wacha, Behramji Malabari, journalist and activist Gooty Kesava Pillai, and P. Rangaiah Naidu of the Madras Mahajana Sabha . </P> <P> Within the next few years, Congress' demands became more radical in the face of constant opposition from the British government, and the party decided to advocate in favour of the independence movement because it would allow a new political system in which Congress could be a major party . By 1905, a division opened between the moderates led by Gokhale, who downplayed public agitation, and the new "extremists" who advocated agitation, and regarded the pursuit of social reform as a distraction from nationalism . Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who tried to mobilise Hindu Indians by appealing to an explicitly Hindu political identity displayed in the annual public Ganapati festivals he inaugurated in western India, was prominent among the extremists . </P>

Explain four common features found in the backgrounds of members of congress