Tag: first general elections

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.

Under the reorganization of states, princely states were categorized into groups A, B, and C. Jammu and Kashmir was classified under Part B.

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.

Orissa was the first Indian state (pre-independence) formed on a linguistic basis in 1936 due to the efforts of Madhusudan Das and become province of Orissa.

The act came into effect from the constitution act, 1956 and was the seventh amendment act. This act involved measures taken by the Government of India to bring boundaries of Indian states, territories, organizing them under Linguistic lines.

Part A states, which were the former governors' provinces of British India, were ruled by an elected governor and state legislature.It includes Assam, Bihar, Bombay, Madhya Pradesh Etc.

The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 was a major reform that redrew the boundaries of Indian states primarily based on linguistic lines to ensure better administration and representation.

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