1957 Indian general election

1957 Indian general election

← 1951 24 February – 14 March 1957 1962 →

494 of the 505 seats in the Lok Sabha
248 seats needed for a majority
Registered193,652,179
Turnout45.44% (Increase 0.57 pp)
  First party Second party
 
Leader Jawaharlal Nehru Ajoy Ghosh
Party INC CPI
Last election 44.99%, 364 seats 3.29%, 16 seats
Seats won 371 27
Seat change Increase 7 Increase 11
Popular vote 57,579,589 10,754,075
Percentage 47.78% 8.92%
Swing Increase 2.79 pp Increase 5.63 pp

Results by constituency

Prime Minister before election

Jawaharlal Nehru
INC

Prime Minister after election

Jawaharlal Nehru
INC

General elections were held in India between 24 February and 9 June 1957, the second elections to the Lok Sabha after independence. Elections to many state legislatures were held simultaneously.

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% to 48%. The INC received nearly five times more votes than the Communist Party, the second largest party. In addition, 19% of the vote and 42 seats went to independent candidates, the highest of any Indian general election.

Electoral system

There were 494 seats elected using first past the post voting. Out of the 403 constituencies, 91 elected two members, while the remaining 312 elected a single member. The multi-seat constituencies were abolished before the next election.

The elections were overseen by Sukumar Sen, the Chief Election Commissioner, who used the existing election infrastructure to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Historian Ramachandra Guha wrote "this general election cost the exchequer Rs45 million less than the previous one. The prudent Sen had safely stored the 3.5 million ballot boxes the first time round and only half a million additional ones were required."

Results

PartyVotes%Seats+/–
Indian National Congress57,579,58947.78371+7
Praja Socialist Party12,542,66610.4119–2
Communist Party of India10,754,0758.9227+11
Bharatiya Jana Sangh7,193,2675.974+1
Scheduled Castes Federation2,038,8901.696+4
All India Ganatantra Parishad1,291,1411.077+1
People's Democratic Front1,044,0320.872–5
Hindu Mahasabha1,032,3220.861–3
Peasants and Workers Party of India924,8320.774+2
Jharkhand Party751,8300.626+3
Forward Bloc (Marxist)665,3410.552+1
Chota Nagpur Santhal Parganas Janata Party501,3590.423+2
Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad460,8380.380–3
Revolutionary Socialist Party308,7420.260–3
Praja Party140,7420.1200
Independents23,284,24919.3242+5
Appointed members11+1
Total120,513,915100.00505+6
Registered voters/turnout193,652,17945.44
Source: ECI
  1. ^ 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

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

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.

See also


This page was last updated at 2024-01-18 12:30 UTC. Update now. View original page.

All our content comes from Wikipedia and under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.


Top

If mathematical, chemical, physical and other formulas are not displayed correctly on this page, please useFirefox or Safari