H 11: 1st ELECTION OF FREE INDIA (1951-52)
In March 1950, Sukumar Sen was appointed chief election commissioner.Sen was educated at Presidency College & at London University,where he was awarded gold medal in mathematics. A very dedicated & honest Civil Servant. (1/10)

H 11.1: Problems that S.Sen faced to conduct elections:
1 Size of electorate 176 million
2 Registration of voters(85% could not read/write)
3 Design party symbols & ballot papers
4 Sites for polling stations
5 Honest polling officers
6 Concurrent General & State Elections (2/10)

H 11.2: Resources used for 1951 Elections :
1 224,000 polling booths constructed
2 2 million steel ballot boxes
3 16,500 clerks to type & collate electoral rolls
4 380,000 reams of paper
5 56,000 presiding officers to supervise voting
6 224,000 policemen on duty (3/10)

H 11.3: Women at that time register themselves as voter associated with male family member eg. A's wife/B's mother. Sen hated this & asked officials to make correct registration. Sen despite furore struck off many women voters from list due to this practice. (4/10)
#sassyhistory

H 11.4: Polls in India were to coincide with elections in the UK. In India, election campaign was conducted through large public meetings, door to door & use of visual media. A new method of advertising was in Calcutta, where stray cows had Vote Congress written on backs. (5/10)

H 11.5: In space of 9 weeks, JL Nehru covered country from end to end. He traveled approx 25000 miles. Nehru kicked off his party’s campaign with a speech in Punjab. In Bengal he dismissed Jana Sangh as the illegitimate child of the RSS & Hindu Mahasabha. (6/10)
#sassyhistory

H 11.6: Highest Voter turnout was in Kottayam & lowest in Shahdol. Some news bytes then:
1.110 year old in Madurai came up on either side by a great grandson to vote
2.90 year old in Maharashtra cast vote for State election but died before he could do same for Parliament. (7/10)

H 11.7: Politicians & Public in 1st election were law abiding & peaceful. There were only 1,250 election offences reported. Polling for election ended in the last week of February 1952. Congress had won comfortably. The party secured 364 out of 489 seats in Parliament.(8/10)

H 11.8: A dispossessed Maharaja had commented that any constitution that sanctioned universal suffrage in a land of illiterates was crazy. Also Organiser, paper published by RSS hoped that JL Nehru would live to confess the failure of universal adult franchise in India.(9/10)

H 11.9: JL Nehru is called architect of modern democratic India cuz it was Nehru who stood against all forces/voices & provided all Indians with voting rights w/o prerequisites. I think in the absence of Nehru as leader, India would be turned into dictatorship in no time.(10/10)

JL Nehru kicked off his party’s campaign (30 Sept,1951) in 1st Election of Independent India with a speech in which city of Punjab?
#sassyhistory