First General Elections, 1951-52

At a Glance

• Chief Election Commissioner Sukumar Sen (from 21 March 1950)
• Voters About 173 million; 21 years and above
• Lok Sabha seats 489 from 401 constituencies
• Result Congress 364 seats, 44.99 per cent votes
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Modern History: Independence and the New-Born Nation

Where Does It Fit?

This is the eleventh and last topic of the category on independence and the new-born nation. The previous topic covered nationalist foreign policy. This topic covers the first general elections. The next category begins with the debate over the national language in the Nehru era. Previous topic: Evolution of Nationalist Foreign Policy: Panchsheel and Non-Alignment.

How Was the Ground Prepared?

With the Constitution in force in 1950, India was a sovereign democratic republic and could cut its remaining links with Britain. Provisions on citizenship and Article 324 on the Election Commission came into force on 26 November 1949, and the rest of the Constitution on 26 January 1950. The founders put electoral procedure in Part XV, Articles 324 to 329. The Election Commission was set up on 25 January 1950, and Sukumar Sen, an ICS officer, became the first Chief Election Commissioner on 21 March 1950. For a long time the Commission was a single-member body. Under Article 324 it has the superintendence, direction and control of elections to Parliament, state legislatures and the offices of President and Vice-President, and it was made independent of the government of the day. The constitutional process is in Objectives Resolution Moved by Nehru, 13 December…">Making of the Constitution: Constituent Assembly and Its Work.

Two laws gave the detailed rules. The Representation of the People Act, 1950 provided for the qualification of voters and the preparation of electoral rolls and allocated seats in the House of the People and state legislatures. The Representation of the People Act, 1951 laid down the qualification and disqualification of members, the conduct of elections, poll expenses, the poll and the counting. Only after these were passed could the machinery be built, so the first phase began on 15 October 1951 instead of 1950. Of the 489 seats, 72 were reserved for Scheduled Castes and 26 for Scheduled Tribes; of 3,283 state assembly seats, 477 were reserved for Scheduled Castes and 192 for Scheduled Tribes.

What Challenges Did the Commission Face?

The elections were held on universal adult franchise for everyone aged 21 and above. The electoral rolls, excluding Jammu and Kashmir, had 17,32,13,635 voters, roughly 173 million, of whom about 45 per cent were women, against a 1951 population of 35,66,91,760, so 49 per cent of the population was enrolled. Most voters were poor, illiterate, rural and inexperienced, and the exercise was called a leap in the dark by some and an act of faith by others.

Who Contested and How Was the Election Conducted?

The Congress had the largest following, but other political strands were forming. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee left the cabinet and set up the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in October 1951, Ambedkar revived the Scheduled Castes Federation, Acharya Kripalani founded the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party, Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan led the Socialist Party, and the communists, having abandoned the armed struggle in Telangana, also contested, as in Communists and Independence. Fourteen national parties and 53 parties in all took part, with 1,874 candidates including 533 independents.

There were 401 constituencies: 314 single-member, 86 two-member and one three-member, for 489 seats. About 2,24,000 polling booths were used, roughly one for every 1,000 voters, with over two million steel ballot boxes and about a million officials. Indelible ink, still used, was introduced to prevent impersonation. The system was first-past-the-post, so the candidate with the most votes won without a majority. Turnout was 45.7 per cent, invalid votes only 3 to 4 per cent, and about 40 per cent of eligible women voted. The later growth of parties is in Growth of Other Political Parties.

What Were the Results?

The Congress contested 472 seats and won 364, with close to 45 per cent of votes. The independents formed the next largest group. Winners included Gulzarilal Nanda and Lal Bahadur Shastri, both future prime ministers, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, A.K. Gopalan and Humayun Kabir. B.R. Ambedkar lost from the reserved seat of Bombay North Central to his former assistant, the Congress candidate Narayan Sadoba Kajrolkar, and entered Parliament later through the Rajya Sabha. Acharya Kripalani lost at Faizabad, while his wife Sucheta Kripalani defeated the Congress candidate in Delhi. The first Lok Sabha was constituted on 2 April 1952, G.V. Mavalankar was its Speaker, and Nehru became the first prime minister after the elections. In the state assemblies the Congress won 2,248 seats and formed governments in all the states, though it lacked a majority on its own in Madras, Travancore-Cochin, Orissa and PEPSU.

As an analytical point, the result combined a very large seat majority with a vote share below 50 per cent, a consequence of the first-past-the-post system and of a divided opposition. The elections showed that universal adult franchise could be run in a poor and largely illiterate country, and they gave the new republic a legitimacy that an indirectly elected Constituent Assembly did not have. The Nehru government that followed is in Debate Over the National Language and the other topics of the Nehru era.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Election facts Numbers, dates and persons are frequent Prelims questions
• Challenges of the Commission Show the difficulty of the first adult-franchise election
• Party system Origins of the Congress dominance and the opposition

What Came Next?

The next category begins with the Nehru era and the debate over the national language. Next topic: Debate Over the National Language.

Key People and Terms

• Sukumar Sen First Chief Election Commissioner
• Representation of the People Act Laws of 1950 and 1951 on rolls and conduct of elections
• First-past-the-post Plurality system of voting
• G.V. Mavalankar Speaker of the first Lok Sabha
• Indelible ink Introduced to prevent impersonation
• Article 324 Gives the Election Commission its powers

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask about the conduct and significance of the first elections. These points add depth.

• Preparation Commission, laws and rolls
• Difficulties Illiteracy, women’s names, refugees
• Result Congress dominance and a divided opposition