Hyderabad Legislative Assembly election, 1952

Indian administrative divisions, as of 1951

Elections to the Legislative Assembly of the Indian state of Hyderabad were held on 27 March 1952. 564 candidates competed for the 175 seats in the Assembly. There were 33 two-member constituencies and 109 constituencies single-member constituencies.^[1]

Indian National Congress

The Congress Party won a clear majority of the seats in the assembly (93 seats out of 175), with 41.86% of the popular vote.^[1] Prominent Congress MLAs from Hyderabad District included Dr. G. S. Melkote and Gopal Rao Ekbote.^[2] Kashinath Rao Vaidya, the Congress MLA from Begum Bazar, was elected Speaker of the Assembly after the election.^[3]

People's Democratic Front

The elections were held in the aftermath of the Telangana armed struggle. The communists had called off their guerrilla campaign in October 1951, just few months before the polls.^[4] The Communist Party of India was banned in the state at the time, but contested the election under the cover of the People's Democratic Front.^[5] The PDF won all of the seats in Nalgonda district.^[2]

Socialist Party

The socialists contested 97 seats.^[1] However, the result was a set-back for the party with eleven seats won. The party had refused to cooperate with other parties against the Congress, which could have limited their success. Moreover, the party lacked strong leaders and was organizationally weak in the state.^[6] The socialist leader Mahadev Singh lost the seat he contested (Secunderabad).^[1][6]

Scheduled Castes Federation

The SCF contested the election in alliance with the PDF.^[7]

Muslim candidates

At the time, Muslims represented 7.75% of the population in the state. Out of the main parties, the Indian National Congress had nominated 12 Muslim candidates (6.94% of their candidates), People's Democratic Front had six Muslim candidates (7.69%) whilst the Socialist Party nominated three Muslims (3.09%). Eleven Muslims were elected, below their percentage of the population. Eight of the elected Muslims came from the Indian National Congress, two from the People's Democratic Front (Mohamed Abdur Rahman from Malaket constituency and Syed Akhtar Hussain from Jangaon) and one had contested as an independent (Syed Hasan, Hyderabad City constituency).^[1][8][9]

Results

Result Summary

 Summary of results of the Hyderabad Legislative Assembly election, 1952 ^[1]

	Political party	Flag	Seats Contested	Won	% of Seats	Votes	Vote %
	Indian National Congress		173	93	53.14	21,77,716	41.86
	Socialist Party		97	11	6.29	5,90,209	11.35
	People's Democratic Front		77	42	24.00	10,80,092	20.76
	Scheduled Castes Federation		24	5	2.86	2,66,482	5.12
	Peasants and Workers Party of India		21	10	5.71	2,15,992	4.15
	Independent		136	14	8.00	7,58,318	14.58
Total seats			175	Voters	1,21,14,635	Turnout	52,02,214 (42.94 %)

State Reorganization and Merger

On 1 November 1956, under States Reorganisation Act, 1956, Hyderabad State was merged into Andhra State to form a single state Andhra Pradesh. The districts of Raichur, Bidar and Gulbarga were transferred to Mysore State, while Marathwada district was transferred to Bombay State.^[10]

See also

• 1951–52 elections in India
• Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election, 1955
• Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election, 1957

References