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1957 Indian general election
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494 of the 505 seats in the Lok Sabha 248 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General elections were held in India between 24 February and 9 June 1957, the second elections to the Lok Sabha after independence. They were held five years after the 1951–52 elections in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of India. Elections to many state legislatures were held simultaneously.
There were 494 seats elected using first past the post voting system. Out of the 403 constituencies, 91 elected two members, while the remaining 312 elected a single member.[1][2] The multi-seat constituencies were abolished before the next election.
Under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian National Congress easily won a second term in power, taking 371 of the 494 seats. They gained an extra seven seats (the size of the Lok Sabha had been increased by five) and their vote share increased from 45.0% to 47.8%. The INC won nearly five times more votes than the Communist Party, the second largest party. In addition, 19.3% of the vote and 42 seats went to independent candidates, the highest of any Indian general election.
Results[edit]
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| Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/– | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indian National Congress | 57,579,589 | 47.78 | 371 | +7 | |
| Praja Socialist Party | 12,542,666 | 10.41 | 19 | –2 | |
| Communist Party of India | 10,754,075 | 8.92 | 27 | +11 | |
| Bharatiya Jana Sangh | 7,193,267 | 5.97 | 4 | +1 | |
| Scheduled Castes Federation | 2,038,890 | 1.69 | 6 | +4 | |
| All India Ganatantra Parishad | 1,291,141 | 1.07 | 7 | +1 | |
| People's Democratic Front | 1,044,032 | 0.87 | 2 | –5 | |
| Hindu Mahasabha | 1,032,322 | 0.86 | 1 | –3 | |
| Peasants and Workers Party of India | 924,832 | 0.77 | 4 | +2 | |
| Jharkhand Party | 751,830 | 0.62 | 6 | +3 | |
| Forward Bloc (Marxist) | 665,341 | 0.55 | 2 | +1 | |
| Chota Nagpur Santhal Parganas Janata Party | 501,359 | 0.42 | 3 | +2 | |
| Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad | 460,838 | 0.38 | 0 | –3 | |
| Revolutionary Socialist Party | 308,742 | 0.26 | 0 | –3 | |
| Praja Party | 140,742 | 0.12 | 0 | 0 | |
| Independents | 23,284,249 | 19.32 | 42 | +5 | |
| Appointed members[lower-alpha 1] | 11 | +1 | |||
| Total | 120,513,915 | 100.00 | 505 | +6 | |
| Registered voters/turnout | 193,652,179 | 45.44 | |||
| Source: ECI | |||||
- ↑ Six representing Jammu and Kashmir, two representing Anglo-Indians, one representing Part B Tribal Areas in Assam, one representing the Amindive, Laccadive and Minicoy Islands and one representing the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Results by state[edit]
| State | Total seats |
Seats won | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| INC | CPI | PSP | GP | SCF | JKP | BJS | Others | Ind. | App. | ||
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Andhra Pradesh | 43 | 37 | 2 | 2 | 2 | ||||||
| Assam | 12 | 9 | 2 | 1 | |||||||
| Bihar | 53 | 41 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 1 | |||||
| Bombay | 66 | 38 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 8 | |||
| Delhi | 5 | 5 | |||||||||
| Himachal Pradesh | 4 | 4 | |||||||||
| Kerala | 18 | 6 | 9 | 1 | 2 | ||||||
| Jammu and Kashmir | 6 | 6 | |||||||||
| Laccadive, Minicoy, and Amindivi Islands | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Madhya Pradesh | 36 | 35 | 1 | ||||||||
| Madras | 41 | 31 | 2 | 8 | |||||||
| Manipur | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Mysore | 26 | 23 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| North-East Frontier Agency | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Orissa | 20 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 3 | |||||
| Punjab | 22 | 21 | 1 | ||||||||
| Rajasthan | 22 | 19 | 3 | ||||||||
| Tripura | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Uttar Pradesh | 86 | 70 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 9 | |||||
| West Bengal | 36 | 23 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 | |||||
| Anglo-Indians | 2 | 2 | |||||||||
| Total | 505 | 371 | 27 | 19 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 12 | 42 | 11 |
| Source: ECI | |||||||||||
Voting[edit]
The first instance of booth capturing in India was recorded in 1957 in the General Elections of that year in Rachiyahi, in Begusarai's Matihani assembly seat.[3][4][5][6]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ "Statistical Report on General Election, 1957 : To the Second Lok Sabha Volume-I" (PDF). Election Commission of India. p. 5. Retrieved 11 July 2015.
- ↑ "Statistical Report on General Election, 1957 : To the Second Lok Sabha Volume-II" (PDF). Election Commission of India. Retrieved 11 July 2015.
- ↑ "Where booth capturing was born".
- ↑ "In central Bihar, development runs into caste wall".
- ↑ "Empty words in legend's forgotten village".
- ↑ "The myth of history's first booth capturing taking place in Begusarai's Rachiyahi".
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