Story of Second Lok Sabha Elections: After India’s independence, for the first time Lok Sabha elections were held in the country between 1951-52. After this, the second Lok Sabha elections were held in the year 1957. It took a long time of three and a half months to conduct this election in the country.
The Congress party had formed the government with a strong performance in the elections. In this election, the country’s 10th Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee won the first Lok Sabha election. In this report of election stories related to elections, we are telling the story of the second Lok Sabha elections of the country:
The second election lasted for three and a half months
In the history of independent India, the elections of 1957 lasted for three and a half months. This election was held from 24 February to 9 June 1957, whereas in the first general election, there were a total of 489 Lok Sabha seats, which reached 494 in the second general election after five seats were increased in delimitation. In the second election of the country, 45.44 percent of the total voters had cast their vote. In the election, Congress had achieved a jump in vote share by securing 47.8 percent votes, which was 45 percent in the last election. In the second election of the country, the Communist Party of India emerged as the second largest party, which got nine percent of the votes.
How was the performance of which party?
In the country’s second Lok Sabha election, an average of three candidates were contesting on each seat. Congress had emerged as the dominant party in this election. Congress was successful in winning 371 seats with 47.87 percent votes. Communist Party of India (CPI) was at second position by winning 27 seats with nine percent votes. Praja Socialist Party was at third position, which won 19 seats. At the same time, Jan Sangh had won four seats in this election with six percent votes.
Atal won the first election
India’s 10th PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee was elected on Jan Sangh ticket in the year 1957. Lok Sabha Elections Contested and won the first election by winning from Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh. In this election, Atal Bihari contested from three Lok Sabha seats, which included Lucknow, Mathura and Balrampur seats. In the same election year, PM Jawaharlal Nehru had praised him for being a skilled orator and had predicted, “Atal Bihari will one day become the PM of India.”