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HT Archives: 50% vote in Delhi’s first ever legislative assembly elections

By, New Delhi
Jan 18, 2025 06:14 AM IST

Delhi's 1952 assembly elections saw 350,000 voters, mostly rural and working-class, participating. Polling was low in New Delhi, with results expected by January 24.

Over 350,000 voters of Delhi state — about 50% of the electorate — are estimated to have gone to the polls on January 15, 1952, to elect 47 members for the new state assembly and four members for the House of the People.

Counting of votes in the election to the House of the people from the New Delhi Constituency begins. (HT Archives)
Counting of votes in the election to the House of the people from the New Delhi Constituency begins. (HT Archives)

Polling is believed to have been heavier in the rural areas than in the Capital. And in the Capital, too, it is Old Delhi that seems to have taken a lead over New Delhi where voting was the slackest, only about 40%.

Villagers, working classes and refugees went to the polling booths in larger numbers than even the educated classes and old permanent residents of Delhi. Polling in Bhangi Colony (Reading Road), where Mahatma Gandhi used to live among sweepers, presented one of the most interesting election sights. Sweepers, men and women holding babies in their arms waited in long queues to cast their vote.

Congress officials at the Delhi State Congress Committee headquarters said after the polling the party hoped to win about 40 out of 48 seats in the state Assembly and three in Parliament.

Among the Delhi Assembly seats the Congress considers the following as doubtful: Kucha Chelan, Roshanara, Mehrauli (General), Jhandewalan, Kashmiri Gate and Tokriwalan. An Independent has already won the Reading Road (Reserved) constituency.

The Congress is not sure of the New Delhi Parliamentary seat.

FOREIGN OBSERVERS

Teams of observers from Nepal and Indonesia went with Sukumar Sen, Chief Election Commissioner, to witness the polling. Some foreign ambassadors also visited a few booths. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru went round some booths in the morning. The ballot boxes were being collected from all over the state until late in the night and deposited in a spot in Subzimandi under the supervision of deputy commissioner Rameshwar Dayal and other officials. Counting of ballot papers will begin on January 17. Election officials hope to declare the results before January 24. Postal ballot papers are to be received by the election authorities by January 16. In some of the constituencies it is likely that the results will be declared earlier, on January 17.

PEACEFUL POLLING

Dayal said in an interview that voting was peaceful throughout the state. He added there was some excitement among spectators in Jhandewalan constituency where brick-bats were thrown but this soon subsided. About 4,000 policemen and officers kept order at polling booths and at strategic points and there is great praise for their work and for the Delhi Administration and magistracy in connection with election arrangements. Rumours of some arrests in Delhi in connection with polling were denied by officials.

NEW DELHI

In the New Delhi constituency polling, which was dull throughout the pre-lunch period, became somewhat brisk in the afternoon. Most of the intelligentsia showed indifference while working class people waited until late in the day to see how the wind blew. On the whole polling was below expectation. There was some excitement in the chowk opposite Paharganj police station when mounted police were called out to keep order. A number of objections were raised by candidates or their agents. In many polling stations the thin gunny cloth which screened the ballot boxes was too inadequate to hide a voter’s position vis-a-vis the ballot boxes while he cast his vote. There were also cases of alleged impersonation and of voters being carried on trucks. On the whole, polling in New Delhi was peaceful but the voters’ disinclination especially in Paharganj to cast their vote at an early hour was responsible for the low percentage of votes cast.

MIDDLE-CLASS AREAS POLLING

Polling in the middle-class localities in the city was particularly dull in contrast with those inhabited by the working-class population. Daryaganj, which is the home predominantly of middle-class office-going population, seemed to be the most indifferent of all the localities. At about 11am — two-and-a-half hours after the scheduled start of polling — one could hardly notice any activity in some of the booths in this constituency. A party official of the Jan Sangh whose volunteers stood idly round a table near a booth with pads of voters’ slips, explained in the morning that the Sangh supporters were still busy with the puja in connection with the Sankranti. The Sangh’s direct interest in this constituency was for Rang Bibari Lal, a local Sangh leader, opposing Radha Raman (Congress) in a straight fight for the House of the People seat from Delhi city constituency. The Sangh had also extended its support to the independent candidate for the State Assembly, Ishar Das, amongst principal Gurmukh Nihal Singh (Congress).

NARELA

In Narela polling was very heavy, about 70%. The supporters of the Sangh candidate claimed they had the upper hand in the town. The reason for this, they said, was that factionalism in a highly magnified form was prevalent in the town and they had had the backing of influential groups.

The polling station located at Patel Library, Narela, claimed to have established the polling record in the whole of Delhi State. Out of 745 voters, 616 exercised their right of franchise.

Among the voters who came to cast their votes in a polling booth in Narela constituency were a man and woman who were seriously ill and another in an advanced stage of tuberculosis. In another rural constituency a 95-year-old man was carried in a cot to the booth.

A voter in Nangloi threatened not to avail of his franchise rather than give his father’s name wrongly.

A special feature of the elections in the city was the right of adult franchise to which over 300 beggars were entitled in the Chandni Chowk constituency. The beggars, who are residing near the Jumna Bazar in Bela Road area, were stated to be reluctant to turn up at the booth before the lunch interval as most of them were partly engaged in collecting charitable contributions of people during Sankranti celebrations near the Jumna ghats and partly “expected good returns in the form of money” in exercising their franchise.

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