Indian general election, 1951 -- 52 - Wikipedia Indian general election, 1951 -- 52 Indian general election, 1951 ← 1945 25 October 1951 to 21 February 1952 1957 → All 489 seats in the Lok Sabha 245 seats were needed for a majority First party Second party Leader Jawaharlal Nehru Shripad Amrit Dange Party INC CPI Leader 's seat Phulpur Bombay City North Seats won 364 16 Popular vote 47,665,875 3,484,401 Percentage 44.99 % 3.29 % Prime Minister before election Jawaharlal Nehru INC Subsequent Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru INC The Indian general election of 1951 -- 52 elected the first Lok Sabha since India became independent in August 1947. Until this point, the Indian Constituent Assembly had served as an interim legislature. See the ' Durations ' section below to find the time - range associated with these elections. 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. In the first Lok Sabha polls held in 1951, India had around 173 million voters, out of an overall population of about 360 million. Voter turnout was 45.7 %. In the 1952 Indian general election, Ravi Narayana Reddy from Telangana stood for the People 's Democratic Front, ( a pseudonym for the banned Communist Party of India ), and polled more votes than Jawaharlal Nehru and also the first one entering in the parliament in independent India. ( 3 ) Contents 1 Parties 2 Constituencies 3 Results 4 Notable losses 5 Government formation 6 Duration 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading Parties Before Independent India went to the polls, two former cabinet colleagues of Nehru established separate political parties to challenge the INC 's supremacy. While Shyama Prasad Mookerjee went on to found the Jana Sangh in October 1951, Dalit leader Dr. B.R. Ambedkar revived the Scheduled Castes Federation ( which was later named the Republican Party ). Other parties which started coming to the forefront included the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Parishad, whose prime mover was Acharya Kripalani ; the Socialist Party, which had Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan 's leadership to boast of ; and the Communist Party of India. However, these smaller parties were unable to make an electoral stand against the Indian National Congress. Constituencies The first general elections, which were conducted for 489 seats in 401 constituencies, represented 25 Indian states. At that time, there were 314 constituencies with one seat, 86 with two seats and one with three seats. The multi-seat constituencies were abolished in the 1960s. There were also 2 nominated Anglo - Indian members. Results Party Abbr. Votes % Seats Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha ABHM 0.95 Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad RRP 1.97 Bharatiya Jana Sangh BJS 3,246,288 3.06 Bolshevik Party of India BPI 0.02 0 Communist Party of India CPI 3,484,401 3.29 16 Forward Bloc ( Marxist ) FB ( M ) 0.91 Forward Bloc ( Ruiker ) FB ( R ) 0.13 0 Indian National Congress INC 47,665,875 44.99 364 Krishikar Lok Party KLP 1.41 Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party KMPP 6,156,558 5.79 9 Revolutionary Communist Party of India ( Tagore ) RCPI 0.06 0 Revolutionary Socialist Party RSP 0.44 Scheduled Caste Federation SCF 2.38 Socialist Party SP 11,266,779 10.59 12 All India Republican Party REP 0.04 0 All India Republican Party RPP 0.05 0 All India United Kisan Sabha UKS 0.06 0 All Manipur National Union AMNU 0.02 0 All People 's Party APP 0.03 0 Chota Nagpur Santhal Parganas Janata Party CNSPJP 0.22 Cochin Party CP 0.01 0 Commonweal Party CWP 0.31 Ganatantra Parishad GP 0.91 6 Gandhi Sebak Seva GSS 0.01 0 Hill Peoples Party HPP 0.02 0 Historical Research HR 0.00 0 Hyderabad State Praja Party HSPP 0.01 0 Jharkhand Party JKP 0.71 Justice Party JP 0.06 0 Kamgar Kisan Paksha KKP 0.13 0 Kerala Socialist Party KSP 0.1 0 Khasi - Jaintia Durbar KJD 0.03 0 Kisan Janata Sanyukta Party KJSP 0.01 0 Kisan Mazdoor Mandal KMM 0.01 0 Kuki National Association KNA 0.01 0 Lok Sevak Sangh LSS 0.29 Madras State Muslim League Party MSMLP 0.08 National Party of India NPI 0.00 0 Peasants and Workers Party of India PWPI 0.94 Peoples Democratic Front PDF 1.29 7 Praja Party PP 0.02 0 Punjab Depressed Class League PDCL 0.01 0 Pursharathi Panchayat PURP 0.01 0 Revolutionary Socialist Party ( Uttar Pradesh ) RSP ( UP ) 0.02 0 Shiromani Akali Dal SAD 0.99 S.K. Paksha SKP 0.13 0 Saurashtra Khedut Sangh SKS 0.03 0 Tamil Nadu Toilers Party TNTP 0.84 Tamil Nadu Congress Party TNCP 0.03 0 Tribal Sangha TS 0.11 0 Travancore Tamil Nadu Congress Party TTNC 0.11 Uttar Pradesh Praja Party UPP 0.2 0 Zamindar Party ZP 0.27 0 Independents 16,817,910 15.9 37 Nominated Anglo - Indians -- -- Total 105,944,495 100 489 Notable losses Scheduled Caste leader B.R. Ambedkar was defeated in the Bombay ( North Central ) ( reserved seat ) 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. Dr Ambedkar then entered the parliament as a Rajya Sabha member. He contested by - poll from Bhandara in 1954 to try to enter Lok Sabha but again lost to Mr Borkar of Congress. Acharya Kripalani lost from Faizabad in UP as KMPP candidate, but his wife Sucheta Kripalani defeated the Congress candidate Manmohini Sahgal in Delhi. 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 sittings. The Lok Sabha lasted its full term from 17 April 1952 until 4 April 1957. Duration While Indian Government 's official websites and official documents assign the year 1951 to these polls, it is a misrepresentation because all territories except Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir voted in February -- March 1952 ; no polls were held for Lok Sabha seats in Kashmir until 1967, and only Himachal Pradesh voted in 1951 for the first Lok Sabha because weather tends to be inclement in February and March, heavy snow impending free movement. The rest of the India voted only in February -- March 1952 for the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections. Polling was held between 25 October 1951 and 27 March 1952. The very first votes of the election were cast in the tehsil ( district ) of Chini in Himachal Pradesh. See also Election Commission of India Indian presidential election, 1952 References Jump up ^ `` Lok Sabha Results 1951 - 52 ''. Election Commission of India. Jump up ^ `` Statistical Report on Lok Sabha Elections 1951 - 52 '' ( PDF ). Election Commission of India. Jump up ^ `` Lok Sabha Elections Stats Summary 1951 - 52 '' ( PDF ). Election Commission of India. Jump up ^ India has nearly 83 crore voters : Brahma Jump up ^ Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann ( 2001 ) Elections in Asia : A data handbook, Volume I, p. 572 ISBN 0 - 19 - 924958 - X Jump up ^ `` 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. ^ Jump up to : Ramachandra Guha ( 2008 ). India After Gandhi : The History of the World 's Largest Democracy. ISBN 978 - 0 - 06 - 095858 - 9. Jump up ^ David Gilmartin ( 2014 ). `` Chapter 5 : The paradox of patronage and the people 's sovereignty ''. In Anastasia Pivliavsky. Patronage as Politics in South Asia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 151 -- 152. ISBN 978 - 1 - 107 - 05608 - 4. Jump up ^ India 's first voter in Himachal Pradesh, by Gautam Dhmeer, in the Deccan Herald ; published 30 October 2012 ; retrieved 7 April 2014 Further reading Guha, Ramachandra. `` Democracy 's Biggest Gamble, '' World Policy Journal, ( Spring 2002 ) 19 # 1 pp. 95 -- 103 Elections in India General elections 1920 1923 1926 1930 1934 1945 1951 -- 52 1957 1962 1967 1971 1977 1980 1984 1989 1991 1998 1999 2009 2014 2019 State elections 1920 1923 1926 1930 1934 1937 1946 1952 1954 1955 1957 1960 1961 1962 1964 1965 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1977 1978 1979 1980 1982 1984 1985 1989 2017 2018 See also : Elections in Andhra Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh Assam Bihar Chhattisgarh Delhi Goa Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Jammu and Kashmir Jharkhand Karnataka Kerala Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Manipur Meghalaya Mizoram Nagaland Odisha Puducherry Punjab Rajasthan Sikkim Tamil Nadu Telangana Tripura Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand West Bengal Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indian_general_election,_1951 -- 52&oldid = 807791179 '' Categories : Indian general election, 1951 Hidden categories : Use Indian English from July 2016 All Wikipedia articles written in Indian English Use dmy dates from July 2016 Pages using deprecated image syntax Talk Contents About Wikipedia অসমীয়া বাংলা Deutsch Français हिन्दी ਪੰਜਾਬੀ پنجابی Română Svenska தமிழ் Edit links This page was last edited on 30 October 2017, at 03 : 54. 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Question: when were the first general elections held in india
Answer: 1951–52