The First General Election

The years from 1951 to 1964wer the years when India‘s political system took the distinct form.
People experienced an advance towards the basic objectives of democracy, civil liberties and
secularism. The First General election was held in 1951-1952 for over a four month period (
26th October ,1951 to 21st February ,1952). It took place in accordance with the new
constitution.

The election was held on the basis of universal adult suffrage with all those of 21 years of age
or older having the right to vote. There were over 173 million voters. , most of them were
illiterate and rural people having no experience of election, the big question at that time was
how would people respond to this opportunity. Many were doubtful about such an electorate
being able to exercise their right to vote in a politically responsible and mature manner.

India’s electoral system was developed according to the directions of the constitution. The
constitution created an election commission headed by Chief Election Commissioner to
conduct election. It was independent of executive and parliament. Su Kumar Sen was the First
Chief Election Commissioner who ensured a free and fair election.

Preparation Process:

● There was house to house survey to register the voters.

● With over 70% of the voters being illiterate, candidates were to be recognized by
symbols assigned to various political parties and individuals painted on the ballot boxes.
● Over 2lakh 24 thousand polling booths were set up at the ratio of 1:1000 voters.2.5
million ballot boxes were prepared, one box per candidate.
● One million officials were to supervise the election, arrangements were made to count
the votes and declare the winner (of the many candidate whoever got the largest
number of votes was declared elected).
● Candidates of 14 national parties, 63 regional parties, and large number of independent
candidates contested for 489 seats of the Lok Sabha and 3283 seats for state
assemblies. Of these seats were reserved for SC’s and ST’s (98 in Lok Sabha and 669 for
state assemblies.
● Nearly 17,500 candidates stood in election for the seats to Lok Sabha and state
Assembly. Conditions were created for the free participation of opposition parties in the
election, including Jan Sangh and CPI despite the fact that the Jan Sangha had been

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 banned for 3years for spreading communal hatred which led to the assassination of
Gandhi Ji . CPI had created resistance to the authority before elections and even at the
time was firmly opposed to the constitution structure.
● Opposition was fragmented. It comprised Dr. B.R. Ambedkar dalit leader, Shyama
Prakash Mukherjee, Ram Manohar Lohia and Acharya Kiplani.
● The election was marked by vigorous election campaign by Jawahar lal Nehru. He was at
the centre stage of election. He stressed on secularism and national integrity.
● The elections were conducted in fair, free, impartial, orderly manner with very little
violence.
● To avoid impersonation, Indian scientists developed indelible ink which stayed on the
voter’s finger for a week. Nearly 46.6% of the eligible voters had casted their votes.

In many places people celebrated elections as a festival. They wore new dresses and
distributed sweets.

Result:

● The Congress bagged 75% of the seats in Lok sabha and 68.5% of those in state
legislatures. It formed the government at the centre and all the States. (in four states-
Madras , Travancore-Cochin , Orissa and Patiala and east Punjab state union (PEPSU) it
formed the government with the help of independents and smaller local parties which
later merged.
● The CPI along with its allies emerged as the second largest group in the Lok Sabha. The
socialist party won only 19 seats in assembly in UP.
● The Communal parties the Jan Sangh, the Hindu Mahasabha and RAM Rajya Parishad
won only 10%of the Lok Sabha and 6% of the votes casted
● The princes and big land lords wielded great influence in some parts of the country.
Their party Gantantra Parishad won 21.1% (31 sets) of the assembly seats in Orissa. The
Independent and small regional and local parties also got large number of votes and
seats in LokSabha.
● Pressure of factionalism, corruption and fight for tickets were detected.
The political System that was initiated by the elections of 1951-1952 marked the
beginning of multi party system with the Congress enjoying the special status. Despite
the numerically dominant position of Congress, the opposition was quite effective in
Parliament. The press enjoyed full freedom.

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Significance:

● The result showed that the Universal Adult Franchise was well justified.
● The fair and peaceful conduct of the poll was an indication of the important start of the
democratic system.
● Partially as a result of the conduct of the elections, the framework of the Constitution
came to be accepted by all. From then election was to be established as the process to
decide which party would rule India that a change of government would occur through
the constitutionally provided democratic rules and the election rules would be accepted
by the defeated parties.
● Factionalism made its appearance in a big way in almost all the parties. The communal
ad leftist parties had been rejected.

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