•   In the 1907 session held in Surat on the banks of river Tapti, the moderates put up Ras Behari Ghose, as the candidate for Presidentship of the Congress while the extremists desired to choose Lala Lajpat Rai as the President. The moderates were however successful in electing Ras Behari Ghose as the President.

•   The issues on which the split came were the resolutions on self-government, boycott, national education and swaraj.

•   The Surat session ended in a pandemonium and the moderates gained a complete control over the Congress organization.

•    Feared with the growing popularity of Tilak. the Government sent him to Mandalay Jail for six years.

•   B.C. Pal temporarily retired from politics, Lala Lajpat Rai left for Britain in 1908 and Aurobindo Ghose escaped to Pondicherry.

Reasons for Surat Split:

●  The Extremists thought that the people had been encouraged and the battle for freedom had begun. They felt the time had come for the big push to drive the British out and considered the Moderates to be a stumbling block to the movement.

●  Surat split occurred because extremists were dissatisfied with Moderates’ capacity to negotiate with the British.

●  In 1907, Surat Session: The two main objectives placed by the extremists were that:

o  Demand for the resolution of Swaraj

o  Lala Lajpat Rai to be made the President of the INC

●  These two demands were not acceptable to the moderates.