Elections to the Andhra State Legislative Assembly were held on 11 February 1955. 581 candidates contested for the 167 constituencies in the Assembly. There were 29 two-member constituencies and 138 single-member constituencies.[1] The members of the first assembly (1955–62) were allowed a seven-year term. That is to say, in 1957, elections were conducted in the newly added region of Telangana alone, and then in 1962, general elections were held for the state as a whole.[2]
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196 seats in the Andhra State Legislative Assembly 99 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Background
editOn 1 October 1953, a separate Andhra State, consisting of the Telugu-speaking areas of the composite Madras State, with 167 constituencies with 190 seats in the Assembly, was formed. On 1 November 1956, Andhra State was merged with Hyderabad State under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, to form a single state, Andhra Pradesh. The divisions of Aurangabad (Aurangabad, Bhir, Nander, Parbhani), Gulbarga (Bidar, Gulbarga, Osmanabad, Raichur) were detached from Hyderabad State while merging with Andhra State. Besides, the Siruguppa taluk, the Bellary taluk, the Hospet taluk, and a small area of the Mallapuram sub-taluk were transferred from Mysore State to Andhra Pradesh. The Aurangabad division and Osmanabad district of the Gulbarga division were transferred to Bombay State, while the remaining Gulbarga division (excluding Osmanabad district) was transferred to Mysore State.[3] This resulted in the reorganisation of assembly constituencies in Andhra Pradesh, giving way to 85 constituencies with 105 seats in the assembly.
Results
editResults by party
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| Party | Votes | % | Seats | |
| Indian National Congress | 3,394,109 | 39.35 | 119 | |
| Krishikar Lok Party | 625,827 | 7.26 | 22 | |
| Communist Party of India | 2,685,251 | 31.13 | 15 | |
| Praja Socialist Party | 481,666 | 5.58 | 13 | |
| Praja Party | 240,884 | 2.79 | 5 | |
| Bharatiya Jana Sangh | 8,218 | 0.10 | 0 | |
| Independents | 1,188,887 | 13.78 | 22 | |
| Total | 8,624,842 | 100.00 | 196 | |
Results by constitutency
editBy-elections
editOn 16 July 1955, a by-election was held for the Burugupudi seat after the death of the sitting MLA and State Minister for Agriculture, N. Venkata Rama Rao. N. Venkataratnam of the Indian National Congress was elected unopposed.[4][5][6]
In July 1955, a by-election was held for the Sarvepalli seat after the resignation of the sitting MLA Bezawada Gopala Reddy (who had won two seats in the assembly election and had to resign from one of them).[6] The election was won by the Indian National Congress candidate V. K. Reddi, who obtained 22,835 votes (60%), while the independent S. A. Reddi got 15,218 votes (40%).[6][7] While the Congress Party won the election by a comfortable margin, its percentage of the popular vote had decreased by 7.8%.[6]
See also
edit
Notes
edit- ^ Tiruttani was a part of Andhra State before the Andhra Pradesh and Madras Alteration of Boundaries Act.
References
edit- ^ "Statistical Report on General Election, 1955 : To the Legislative Assembly of Andhra Pradesh" (PDF). Election Commission of India. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
- ^ p. 281, Rise of the Plebeians?: The Changing Face of the Indian Legislative Assemblies (), Christophe Jaffrelot, Sanjay Kumar, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2009.
- ^ "Reorganisation of States, 1955" (PDF). The Economic Weekly. 15 October 1955. Retrieved 25 July 2015.
- ^ Election Commission of India. "Bye-election results 1952-95". Archived from the original (XLS) on 11 January 2012.
- ^ Asian Recorder, Vol. 1. 1955. p. 326.
- ^ a b c d Margaret Welpley Fisher; Joan Valérie Bondurant (1956). The Indian experience with democratic elections. University of California. p. 4.
- ^ Election Commission of India. Bye-election results 1952-95
Further reading
edit- Sekhar Bandyopadhyay (2009). Decolonization in South Asia: Meanings of Freedom in Post-independence West Bengal, 1947–52. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-01824-6.
- George Mathew, ed. (1984). Shift in Indian Politics: 1983 Elections in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Studies on Indian democracy, political parties and political process. Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society / Concept Publishing Company.
- Myron Weiner (2015). Party Politics in India. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-7841-3.
- Sadhna Sharma (1995). States Politics in India. Mittal Publications. ISBN 9788170996194.