Who among the following was the President of the Indian National Congress…

Concept

In the early Indian National Congress, presiding over an annual session as its President was a distinct, rotating honorary responsibility, separate from the person who conceived of and organized that particular session as its founding secretary.

Application

The first session of the Indian National Congress was held in Bombay in December 1885 and was attended by seventy-two delegates. Womesh Chandra (W.C.) Bonnerjee, a barrister based in Calcutta, was elected to preside over this inaugural session as its first President.

Cross-check

Comparing this against each option's own connection to the Indian National Congress:

• Mahatma Gandhi entered active Indian National Congress politics from 1915 onward, after returning from South Africa, and later led movements such as Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience in the 1920s and 1930s.

• Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee chaired the inaugural Bombay session of December 1885, as described above.

• Allan Octavian Hume, a retired British civil servant, conceived of and organized the first session, and served as the Congress's General Secretary rather than as its President.

• Jawaharlal Nehru first presided over the Indian National Congress at its Lahore session in 1929, more than four decades after the Congress was founded.

Hence, the President of the 1885 Bombay session was W.C. Bonnerjee.