50% Vote in Delhi's first ever legislative assembly elections

HT's report on the day around 350k people in the city cast their ballot for its first House

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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.

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