The Citizens Federation, which had won three of the four seats reserved for Indo-Fijians at the 1963 elections, decided to formalize its role as a political party, which was officially founded on 21 June 1964 with A. D. Patel as President and Sidiq Koya as Vice-President.
The merger took place in time for the party to participate in the 1965 constitutional conference which was called to map out a path towards independence from the United Kingdom.
When, in late 1964, when the Government announced a constitutional conference to decide on Fiji's move to independence, it asked each ethnic group to select its own delegates.
It was claimed that these did not represent the Indian community and an impasse was avoided when it was decided to invite all unofficial members to the London constitutional conference.
The Alliance Party won 22 seats but the three independents and the two Council of Chiefs nominees joined it to give it a total strength of 27.
In protest at the new government's refusal to call a second constitutional conference, Patel led the nine Federation Party legislators in a mass walkout in September 1967.
The Federation Party, represented by most of its lawyer Councillors, took up the case on behalf of the farmers when arbitration proceedings were begun on 19 August 1969 for the new cane contract.