The story of India's first Lok Sabha election скачать в хорошем качестве

The story of India's first Lok Sabha election

Let’s look at the history of the first general election of the world’s largest democracy. Indian elections were the biggest experiment in democracy anywhere in the world. With a huge newly independent country taking on a democratic election process immediately was a huge challenge. The first election after independence was held on 1951-52 under 68 phases and was over a 4 month period long from 25 October 1951 to 21 February 1952. All those 21 years of age or older had the right to vote The main change was illiteracy. 85 % of the people were illiterate. Election Commission of India had to run campaigns and send representatives door-to-door to convince people to come out and vote. The candidates were to be identified by symbols, assigned to each candidate, painted on the ballot boxes. Nearly 620,000,000 ballot papers were printed and 20 lakh ballot boxes were used. Over 224,000 polling booths, one for almost every 1000 voter and about a million officials supervised the conduct of the polls Candidates of over 14 national and 63 regional parties and a large number of independents contested 489 seats for the Lok Sabha and Over 173 million voters took part in world’s largest democratic process. The first Indians to cast their votes in the Lok Sabha election were Buddhists living in the now Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. Congress with 364 of 489 Lok Sabha seats won the election and Nehru became the first prime minister of India. BR Ambedkar was the biggest name to suffer defeat in the first Lok Sabha election