1951–52 Indian general election

25 October 1951 – 21 February 1952

489 of the 499 seats in the Lok Sabha
245 seats needed for a majority
Registered173,212,343
Turnout44.87%
  First party Second party
 
Leader Jawaharlal Nehru Ajoy Ghosh
Party INC CPI
Seats won 364 16
Popular vote 47,665,951 3,487,401
Percentage 44.99% 3.29%


Prime Minister before election

Jawaharlal Nehru
INC

Prime Minister after election

Jawaharlal Nehru
INC

General elections were held in India between 25 October 1951 and 21 February 1952. India attained independence on 15 August 1947 and set up an Election Commission two years later. In March 1950 Sukumar Sen was appointed as the first Chief Election Commissioner. A month later, the Indian Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act which provided the conduct for election for the Houses of Parliament and the Houses of Legislature for each state.[1] It was conducted under the provisions of the Indian Constitution, which was adopted on 26 November 1949. Elections to most of the state legislatures took place simultaneously.

A total of 1,949 candidates competed for 489 seats in the Lok Sabha. More than 173 million people out of an overall population of about 360 million were eligible to vote,[2] making it the largest election conducted at the time. Voter turnout was 45.7%.[3]

The Indian National Congress (INC) won a landslide victory, winning 364 of the 489 seats and 45% of the total votes polled. This was over four times as many votes as the second-largest party. Jawaharlal Nehru became the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the country.

After the adoption of the constitution on 26 November 1949, the Constituent Assembly continued to act as the interim parliament. The interim cabinet was headed by Jawaharlal Nehru and consisted of 15 members from diverse communities and parties. Various members of this cabinet resigned from their posts and formed their own parties to contest the elections.

A total of 173,212,343 voters were registered (excluding Jammu and Kashmir) out of a population of 361,088,090 according to the 1951 Census of India. All Indian citizens over the age of 21 were eligible to vote.

Each candidate was allotted a different coloured ballot box at the polling booth, on which each candidate's name and symbol were written. 16,500 clerks were appointed on a contract of six months to type and collate the electorate rolls and 380,000 reams of paper were used for printing the rolls.[4]

Due to the harsh climate and challenging logistics, the election was held in 68 phases.[5] A total of 196,084 polling booths were set up, of which 27,527 booths were reserved for women. All states except Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir voted in February–March 1952; no polls were held for Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir until 1967. Himachal Pradesh voted in 1951 for the first Lok Sabha; the weather there tends to be inclement in February and March, heavy snow impending free movement.[6] The first votes of the election were cast in the tehsil (district) of Chini in Himachal Pradesh.[7]

Voters elected 489 members to the lower house of the Parliament of India. These were allotted across 401 constituencies in 25 Indian states. There were 314 constituencies electing one member using the first-past-the-post system. 86 constituencies elected two members, one from the general category and one from Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. There was one constituency with three elected representatives.[8] These multi-seat constituencies were present to fulfill the reservations granted to backward sections of the society by the Constitution. They were later abolished in the 1960s.

The constitution at this time also provided for two Anglo-Indian members to be nominated by the President of India.

Political parties

A total of 53 parties and 533 independents contested the 489 seats.[9]

Several ministers resigned from their posts and formed their own parties to contest the elections. Syama Prasad Mukherjee established the Jana Sangh in October 1951 and Law Minister B. R. Ambedkar revived the Scheduled Castes Federation (which was later named the Republican Party). Congress party president Purushottam Das Tandon resigned from his post because of differences with Nehru.[10][11]

Other parties which started coming to the forefront included the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Parishad, whose prime mover was Acharya Kripalani; the Socialist Party led by Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan; and the Communist Party of India. However, these smaller parties were unable to make an electoral stand against the Indian National Congress.

Results

PartyVotes%Seats
Indian National Congress47,665,95144.99364
Socialist Party11,216,71910.5912
Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party6,135,9785.799
Communist Party of India3,487,4013.2916
Bharatiya Jana Sangh3,246,3613.063
Scheduled Castes Federation2,521,6952.382
Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad2,091,8981.973
Krishikar Lok Party1,489,6151.411
People's Democratic Front1,367,4041.297
Shiromani Akali Dal1,047,6110.994
Hindu Mahasabha1,003,0340.954
Peasants and Workers Party of India992,1870.942
Forward Bloc (Marxist)963,0580.911
All India Ganatantra Parishad959,7490.916
Tamil Nadu Toilers' Party889,2920.844
Jharkhand Party749,7020.713
Revolutionary Socialist Party468,1080.443
Commonweal Party325,3980.313
Lok Sewak Sangh309,9400.292
Zamindar Party291,3000.270
Chota Nagpur Santhal Parganas Janata Party236,0940.221
Uttar Pradesh Praja Party213,6560.200
S.K. Paksha137,3430.130
All India Forward Bloc (Ruikar)133,9360.130
Kamgar Kisan Paksha132,5740.130
Tribal Sangha116,6290.110
Travancore Tamil Nadu Congress115,8930.111
Kerala Socialist Party102,0980.100
Indian Union Muslim League79,4700.081
Revolutionary Communist Party of India67,2750.060
Justice Party63,2540.060
All India United Kisan Sabha60,2540.060
All India Republican Party (RPP)57,8150.050
All India Republican Party (REP)44,2860.040
All People's Party36,8510.030
Tamil Nadu Congress Party36,1580.030
Khasi-Jaintia Durbar32,9870.030
Saurashtra Khedut Sangh29,7660.030
Bolshevik Party of India25,7920.020
All Manipur National Union22,0830.020
Uttar Pradesh Revolutionary Socialist Party20,6650.020
Hill People Party17,3500.020
Praja Party16,9550.020
Kuki National Association12,1550.010
Punjab Depressed Class League11,7890.010
Pursharathi Panchayat10,7780.010
Cochin Party8,9470.010
Kisan Mazdoor Mandal8,8080.010
Hyderabad State Praja Party7,6460.010
Gandhi Sebak Seva7,1960.010
Kisan Janta Sanyukta Party6,3900.010
National Party of India3,2320.000
Historical Research1,4680.000
Independents16,850,08915.9037
Appointed members[lower-alpha 1]10
Total105,950,083100.00499
Registered voters/turnout173,212,34344.87
Source: ECI
  1. Six representing Jammu and Kashmir, two representing Anglo-Indians, one representing Part B tribal areas in Assam and one representing the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Results by state

State Total
seats
Seats won
INC CPI SPI KMPP PDF GP BJS RRP SCF KLP Others Ind. App.
Andaman and Nicobar Islands 1 1
Assam 13 11 1 1
Ajmer 2 2
Bhopal 2 2
Bihar 55 45 3 6 1
Bilaspur 1 1
Bombay 45 40 1 1 3
Coorg 1 1
Delhi 4 3 1
Himachal Pradesh 3 3
Hyderabad 25 14 1 7 1 1 1
Jammu and Kashmir 6 6
Kutch 2 2
Madhya Bharat 11 9 2
Madhya Pradesh 29 27 2
Madras 75 35 8 2 6 9 15
Manipur 2 1 1
Mysore 11 10 1
Orissa 20 11 1 1 6 1
PEPSU 5 2 2 1
Punjab 18 16 2
Rajasthan 20 9 1 3 1 6
Saurashtra 6 6
Travancore–Cochin 12 6 2 4
Tripura 2 2
Uttar Pradesh 86 81 2 1 2
Vindhya Pradesh 6 4 1 1
West Bengal 34 21 5 2 3
Anglo-Indians 2 2
Total 499 364 16 12 9 7 6 3 3 2 1 29 37 10
Source: ECI

Government formation

The speaker of the first Lok Sabha was Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar. The first Lok Sabha also witnessed 677 sittings (3,784 hours), the highest recorded count of the number of sitting hours. The Lok Sabha lasted its full term from 17 April 1952 until 4 April 1957.

Notable losses

First Law Minister B. R. Ambedkar was defeated in the Bombay (North Central)[12] constituency as Scheduled Castes Federation candidate by his little-known former assistant and Congress Candidate Narayan Sadoba Kajrolkar, who polled 1,38,137 votes compared to Ambedkar's 1,23,576 votes.[7]:156 Ambedkar then entered the parliament as a Rajya Sabha member. He contested a by-poll from Bhandara in 1954 in another attempt to enter the Lok Sabha, but again lost to Borkar of Congress.

Acharya Kripalani lost from Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh as a KMPP candidate, but his wife Sucheta Kripalani defeated the Congress candidate Manmohini Sahgal in Delhi.[13]

See also

References

  1. Guha, Ramachandra (2022). India after Gandhi: the history of the world's largest democracy (10th anniversary edition, updated and expanded, first published in hardcover ed.). New Delhi: Picador India. ISBN 978-93-82616-97-9.
  2. India has nearly 83 crore voters: Brahma
  3. Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (2001) Elections in Asia: A data handbook, Volume I, p. 572 ISBN 0-19-924958-X
  4. Pareek, Shabdita (25 January 2016). "This Is How The First General Elections Were Held in Independent India". ScoopWhoop. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
  5. "Interesting Facts About India's First General Elections". indiatimes.com. 28 April 2014. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
  6. India's first voter in Himachal Pradesh, by Gautam Dhmeer, in the Deccan Herald; published 30 October 2012; retrieved 7 April 2014
  7. 1 2 Ramachandra Guha (2008). India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy. ISBN 978-0-06-095858-9.
  8. "General Election of India 1951, List of Successful Candidate" (PDF). Election Commission of India. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 October 2014. Retrieved 12 January 2010.
  9. "First general elections in India: All you need to know". India Today. 10 February 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
  10. Weiner, Myron (8 December 2015). Party Politics in India. Princeton University Press. pp. 78–79. ISBN 978-1-4008-7841-3.
  11. Varshney, Ashutosh. 28 March 2015. "Faults and lines." The Indian Express. Retrieved on 16 June 2020.
  12. (reserved seat)
  13. David Gilmartin (2014). "Chapter 5: The paradox of patronage and the people's sovereignty". In Anastasia Pivliavsky (ed.). Patronage as Politics in South Asia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–152. ISBN 978-1-107-05608-4.

Further reading

  • Guha, Ramachandra. "Democracy's Biggest Gamble", World Policy Journal, (Spring 2002) 19#1 pp. 95–103
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