Presidential election in India in 1952

Rajendra Prasad (1947)

The presidential election in India in 1952 was the first election of the state president in India and took place on May 2, 1952. The candidate of the Congress Party Rajendra Prasad was elected by a large majority .

History and voting mode

Voting weight of the representatives from the states

State	Voting weight
Assam	79
Bihar	119
Bombay	104
Madhya Pradesh	90
Madras	145
Orissa	103
Punjab	100
Uttar Pradesh	143
West Bengal	102
Hyderabad	101
Jammu and Kashmir	59
Madhya Bharat	79
Mysore	81
PEPSU	55
Rajasthan	92
Saurashtra	66
Travancore Cochin	79
Ajmer	24
Bhopal	28
Coorg	7th
Delhi	31
Himachal Pradesh	30th
Vindhya Pradesh	65

See also : Electoral College (India)

After independence from British colonial rule on August 15, 1947, the British monarch George IV initially remained Indian head of state. On January 26, 1950, the newly drafted constitution of India came into force, which declared the country a republic. According to Article 55 of the Constitution, the head of state should be an indirectly elected president. As electoral body the Constitution saw a electoral college ( Electoral College before) extending from the votes in weight of equal numbers of Members of the pan-Indian Parliament ( Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha composed), and the deputies of all the then 25 states of India.

The election was announced on April 4, 1952, candidate proposals could be submitted until April 12, and the actual election took place on May 2, 1952. The following were entitled to vote in the electoral college:

• 489 elected Lok Sabha MPs
• 204 elected Rajya Sabha MPs
• 3,363 MPs in state parliaments

The electoral college was thus formally composed of 4056 members of parliament. The relative voting weight of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs was 494, the relative voting weight of the MPs from the 25 parliaments of the federal states was between 7 ( Coorg ) and 143 ( Uttar Pradesh ). The voting weights were determined based on the 1951 census.

Election result

The Congress party's candidate was former minister Rajendra Prasad. His main opponent was the non-party KT Shah, an economist from Bombay who was supported by the Communist Party and the Sikh party Akali Dal . 3,480 (86%) parliamentarians took part in the vote. 2,357 MPs from the states and 530 MPs from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha voted for Prasad. 478 and 83 MPs respectively voted for Shah. For the other 3 candidates, a total of 23 MPs from the states and 6 from the Indian Parliament voted. 73 ballot papers were considered invalid.

The result was the following:

candidate	Given weighted votes	In percent
Rajendra Prasad	507,400	83.8
KT Shah	92,827	15.3
Thatte Lakshman Ganesh	2,672	0.4
Hari Ram	1.954	0.3
Krishna Kumar Chatterjee	533	0.1
total	605.386	100

Rajendra Prasad was declared the election winner and the election results were published on May 6, 1952. On May 13, 1952, he was sworn in as the first President of India.

Web links

• Constitution of India , the Indian Constitution on the Government of India website
• Election to the Office of the President 2012 (pdf, detailed explanation of the electoral process based on the 2012 election, with election results of all presidential elections up to 2007, English), Indian Electoral Commission 2012

Individual evidence

1. ^ REPORT on the FIRST GENERAL ELECTIONS IN INDIA 1951-52. Volume I, pp. 162/163. Government of India Press, New Delhi (1955)
2. ^ Electoral Statistics Pocket Book. (PDF; 3.9 MB) 2014, archived from the original on July 1, 2014 ; accessed on August 4, 2019 . 
3. ^ Valmiki Choudhary: President and the Indian Constitution. Allied Publishers (1985). P. 16ff
4. ↑ DR PRASAD ELECTED INDIAN PRESIDENT. Himalayan Times, May 6, 1952, accessed on February 20, 2015 (English, newspaper digitized at Heidelberg University). 
5. ↑ Election to the Office of the President 2012. (pdf) Indian Electoral Commission, 2012, accessed on February 18, 2015 (English, detailed explanation of the electoral process based on the 2012 election).