Latest revision as of 21:00, 15 April 2024

[edit] Conducting India’s first general election

Shyamlal Yadav, April 12, 2024: The Indian Express

Besides the Indian National Congress led by Jawaharlal Nehru, others in the race included the Socialist Party, with Jayaprakash Narayan as one of its leaders; Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP) of J B Kripalani; Communist Party of India (CPI); Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS, the precursor of the BJP); Hindu Maha Sabha (HMS); Karpatri Maharaj’s Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad (RRP); and Tridib Choudhuri’s Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP).

ECI’s unique challenges

The office of the Election Commission of India (ECI) was set up on January 25, 1950. Sukumar Sen, an officer of the Indian Civil Service and a former Chief Secretary of West Bengal, became Chief Election Commissioner on March 21, 1950. On April 19 that year, while proposing The Representation of the People Act, India’s election law, Prime Minister Nehru told Parliament that polls would be held in the spring of 1951.

But neither the government nor the people had any experience of conducting or participating in such an exercise. The 1937 election in nine ‘Part-A States’ — Assam, Bihar, Bombay, Madhya Pradesh, Madras, Orissa, Punjab, United Provinces and West Bengal — were smaller, with limited franchise based on land ownership, literacy, etc.

CEC Sen viewed Nehru’s “haste” in holding elections “with some alarm”, Guha wrote. “For no officer of state, certainly no Indian official, ever had such a stupendous task placed in front of him,” he wrote.

The challenges were formidable and unique — not only was the electorate spread over more than a million square miles, there was a peculiar social problem. “Many women in northern India…wished to register themselves as A’s mother or B’s wife [and not by their own names],” Guha wrote. CEC Sen was outraged, “and directed his officials to correct the rolls by inserting the names of the women…”.

Ultimately, 17.32 crore voters from across the country (excluding J&K) were enrolled, and 45% were women.

Colourful ballot boxes

Some 1.32 lakh polling stations with 1.96 lakh booths were set up, and 3.38 lakh policemen were deployed on election duty. The first mock polling drill was held in Udaipur on August 5, 1951.

Over a dozen manufacturers were contracted to supply 19 lakh steel ballot boxes, with the price per box fixed at Rs 4-6.12. The boxes for the Lok Sabha election were in four colours — olive green, meadow green, pale green, and Brunswick green; those for Assembly candidates were in shades of chocolate, mahogany, teak, dark tan, and bronze.

Given that India’s literacy rate in 1951 was only 18.33%, the idea was to have ballot boxes in different colours, each representing a candidate. But this was not practical, and it was finally decided that there would be a separate ballot box for each candidate at all booths, with the candidate’s election symbol on it.

The ballot papers were the size of a Re 1 currency note. They were pink in colour, with “Election Commission India” inscribed on them. They displayed a serial number with two letters of the alphabet denoting the state — BR for Bihar, AS for Assam, etc.

The ballots also had serial numbers printed in black, and the national crest in white. The papers for Lok Sabha elections had a thick vertical bar of olive green colour; those for state Assemblies had a chocolate-coloured bar.

Voters were to collect the ballots at the polling station, and put them in the boxes of candidates of their choice.

Himachal was first to vote

After delays, polling finally took place between December 1951 and February 1952. However, votes in Chini and Pangi Assembly constituencies of Himachal Pradesh were cast in October 1951, before snow could cut these areas off from the rest of India. On December 10, 1951, voting began in the rest of the country with the Thiruvella and Trichur Lok Sabha constituencies of Travancore-Cochin (present-day Kerala) first to cast their vote.

The first election had 1,874 Lok Sabha candidates and 15,361 state Assembly candidates. Kottayam (Travancore-Cochin), Alleppey (Travancore-Cochin), and Gudivada (Madras) saw the highest voter turnouts of 80.5%, 78.1%, and 77.9% respectively.

When the results were declared on April 2, 1952, the Congress won 318 seats, the Socialist Party won 12, KMPP 9, CPI 8, HMS 4, and BJS, RRP, and RSP won 3 seats each. Independents won 37 seats.

Expected wins, shock defeat

The likes of Nehru and Syama Prasad Mookerjee expectedly won. But Morarji Desai lost in Bombay, and Jai Narayan Vyas in Rajasthan. The biggest upset, however, was the defeat of B R Ambedkar, who lost to his former personal assistant, Narayan Sadoba Kajrolkar, by around 15,000 votes at the Bombay North Central seat.

The first Lok Sabha also had multiple-member constituencies, a practice that was done away with in the elections of 1962. Under this, some constituencies returned two members — one from the general category, another from the SC or ST categories — and, in one constituency, all three categories returned one member each.

The ECI had granted 14 parties the status of ‘national parties’, and designated more than 50 parties as ‘state parties’. After the elections, only the Congress, Praja Socialist Party (formed with the merger of the Socialist Party and KMPP), CPI, and BJS were able to retain their national party status.

Elections a remarkable success

The “biggest experiment in democracy in human history”, as CEC Sen described the elections, ended as a resounding success, putting to rest the doubts that many, including even Nehru on occasion, had.

After the elections, Nehru said: “My respect for the so-called illiterate voter has gone up. Whatever doubts I might have had about adult suffrage in India have been removed completely.” (Guha: India After Gandhi)

NYT Elections by chithira.cnr on Scribd

CEC Sen’s initial scepticism too dissipated. The Election Commission’s Report on the First General Elections 1951-52 quoted Sen as saying, “Adult suffrage was a remarkable success and proved a potent factor in itself for advancing the political education of an illiterate mass which had little or no background of political experience.”

This is the first part of a 17-part series on India’s Lok Sabha elections — the world’s largest excercise in democracy.