India After Independence: Political Development (1947-1977) - Class X

First general elections were held in the year 1952 in India. Indian national congress won the landslide victory and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister.

Indian National Congress under the leadership of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru won the majority in first election of India.

Congress, however, suffered some unexpected setbacks in three southern states Tamil Nadu (Madras), Andhra Pradesh (Hyderabad) and Kerala (Travancore) where the party failed to win majority in the face of strong support of the Communist Party. 

The  first elections of India were held based on universal adult franchise, with all those twenty-one years of age or older having the right to vote. 

There were over 173 million voters, most of them poor, illiterate, and rural, and having had no experience of elections. The big question at the time was how would the people respond to this opportunity.

The first election was the big task for Indian Election commission because of large number of illiterate population. Hence it was held between 1951 to 1952.

Organization of the elections was a wondrous task. There was a house-to-house survey to register the voters. With over 70 per cent of the voters being illiterate, the candidates were to be identified by symbols, assigned to each major party and independent candidates, painted on the ballot-boxes (this was later changed to symbols on the ballot papers). The voters were to place the ballot papers in the box assigned to a particular candidate, and ballot was secret. Over 224,000 polling booths, one for almost every 1000 voters, were constructed and equipped with over 21/2 million steel ballot-boxes, one box for every candidate.

India's electoral system was developed according to the directives of the Constitution. The Constitution made a provision for an Election Commission. It was to be headed by a Chief Election Commissioner, to conduct elections. It was to be independent of the executive or the parliament or the party in power.

Due to maximum number of literate population, it was necessary for election commission to have big team for conducting election properly. So, there are 3 lakhs officers and polling staffs were hired to conduct election.

The first general election was the big test for democracy in India. Because at that time India was poor and illiterate along with election commission had given right to every adult Indian citizen to vote along with women's.This kind of practice had not yet performed in European countries at that time, which are rich and literate as comparison to India.

At the time of first election in India, there are 17 crore eligible voters are present. Out of which only 15% were literate.

The commission of India was set up in January 1950 to conduct general election in India after independence. Sukumar Sen was the first election commissioner of India.