Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/182

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to Lahore. But imagining that Napgur was a safer place, Sir P. M. Mehta got the venue of the next Congress fixed at Nagpur. It is said that when the Moderate leaders left Calcutta, it was already arranged that Dr. Rash Behari Ghose was to be made President at Nagpur. In the various Provincial Conferences held in the first few months of 1907, attempts were made to go back upon the Calcutta Resolutions and thus prepare the ground for a retrograde step in December. In Bengal, happily there was no such attempt, as both the parties were suijiciently advanced and knew the value of unity. But in the Provincial Conference at Surat, Sir Pherozeshah, taking advantage of Mr. Tilak's absence, tried to overawe the "Extremists" and succeded in dropping the Resolutions on Boycott and National Education. In the Provincial Conference at Raipur (Berar), there was a serious dispute over the singing of such an innocent song, as the "Bande Mataram"; and it was only the presence of Mr. Khaparde that compelled the Moderate leaders to give in. At Allahabad, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, who in the Calcutta Congress had declared that his province would not accept Boycott, refused admittance to about 200 Delegates to the Conference. He put forth the strange plea of inconvenience but presumably he wanted to boycott the supporters of Boycott. All these signs showed how the Moderates were smarting under their "discomfiture" at Calcutta. At Nagpur, a Conference was held on January 27th, 1907, to appoint the Provincial Committee which in its turn met on February 22nd to constitute the Reception Committee. The new constitution of the Congress had practically delegated the work of