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
Registered	173,212,343
Turnout	44.87%
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

Party		Votes	%	Seats
	Indian National Congress	47,665,951	44.99	364
	Socialist Party	11,216,719	10.59	12
	Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party	6,135,978	5.79	9
	Communist Party of India	3,487,401	3.29	16
	Bharatiya Jana Sangh	3,246,361	3.06	3
	Scheduled Castes Federation	2,521,695	2.38	2
	Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad	2,091,898	1.97	3
	Krishikar Lok Party	1,489,615	1.41	1
	People's Democratic Front	1,367,404	1.29	7
	Shiromani Akali Dal	1,047,611	0.99	4
	Hindu Mahasabha	1,003,034	0.95	4
	Peasants and Workers Party of India	992,187	0.94	2
	Forward Bloc (Marxist)	963,058	0.91	1
	All India Ganatantra Parishad	959,749	0.91	6
	Tamil Nadu Toilers' Party	889,292	0.84	4
	Jharkhand Party	749,702	0.71	3
	Revolutionary Socialist Party	468,108	0.44	3
	Commonweal Party	325,398	0.31	3
	Lok Sewak Sangh	309,940	0.29	2
	Zamindar Party	291,300	0.27	0
	Chota Nagpur Santhal Parganas Janata Party	236,094	0.22	1
	Uttar Pradesh Praja Party	213,656	0.20	0
	S.K. Paksha	137,343	0.13	0
	All India Forward Bloc (Ruikar)	133,936	0.13	0
	Kamgar Kisan Paksha	132,574	0.13	0
	Tribal Sangha	116,629	0.11	0
	Travancore Tamil Nadu Congress	115,893	0.11	1
	Kerala Socialist Party	102,098	0.10	0
	Indian Union Muslim League	79,470	0.08	1
	Revolutionary Communist Party of India	67,275	0.06	0
	Justice Party	63,254	0.06	0
	All India United Kisan Sabha	60,254	0.06	0
	All India Republican Party (RPP)	57,815	0.05	0
	All India Republican Party (REP)	44,286	0.04	0
	All People's Party	36,851	0.03	0
	Tamil Nadu Congress Party	36,158	0.03	0
	Khasi-Jaintia Durbar	32,987	0.03	0
	Saurashtra Khedut Sangh	29,766	0.03	0
	Bolshevik Party of India	25,792	0.02	0
	All Manipur National Union	22,083	0.02	0
	Uttar Pradesh Revolutionary Socialist Party	20,665	0.02	0
	Hill People Party	17,350	0.02	0
	Praja Party	16,955	0.02	0
	Kuki National Association	12,155	0.01	0
	Punjab Depressed Class League	11,789	0.01	0
	Pursharathi Panchayat	10,778	0.01	0
	Cochin Party	8,947	0.01	0
	Kisan Mazdoor Mandal	8,808	0.01	0
	Hyderabad State Praja Party	7,646	0.01	0
	Gandhi Sebak Seva	7,196	0.01	0
	Kisan Janta Sanyukta Party	6,390	0.01	0
	National Party of India	3,232	0.00	0
	Historical Research	1,468	0.00	0
	Independents	16,850,089	15.90	37
Appointed members[lower-alpha 1]				10
Total		105,950,083	100.00	499
Registered voters/turnout		173,212,343	44.87
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

• List of members of the 1st Lok Sabha
• Election Commission of India
• 1952 Indian presidential election

References

Further reading

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