Sukumar Sen, an INS officer, who also served as the chief secretary of West Bengal, was the first Chief Election Commissioner of the nation. He assumed charge on March 21, 1950, two months after the inception of the polls body. He was the who conducted the first two general elections in Independent India.During an interview with PTI, former Chief Election Commissioner Qureshi said, “I have no inhibition in saying that nearly 80 per of what we do today (as an Election Commission) is what he had started. We are carrying it forward. And, thumbs up to the Commission and its role over the years”.During the first election in India in 1951, Voters elected the 489 members of the first Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India. Elections to most of the state legislatures were also held simultaneously.The 489 seats of the Lok Sabha were allotted across 401 constituencies in 25 states. There were 314 constituencies electing one member using the first-past-the-post system. 86 constituencies elected two members, one from the general category and one from Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. There was one constituency with three elected representatives.[2] The multi-seat constituencies were created as reserved seats for backward sections of society, and were abolished in the 1960s. The constitution at this time also provided for two Anglo-Indian members to be nominated by the President of India.During this election, a total of 1,949 people contested from the 489 seats. Each candidate was allotted a different coloured ballot box at the polling booth, on which each candidate’s name and symbol were written.A total of 173,212,343 voters were registered (excluding Jammu and Kashmir) out of a population of 361,088,090 according to the 1951 census, making it the largest election conducted at the time. All Indian citizens over the age of 21 were eligible to vote.The first election was held in 68 phases. A total of 196,084 polling booths were set up, of which 27,527 booths were reserved for women.The result was a landslide victory for the Indian National Congress (INC), which received 45% of the vote and won 364 of the 489 seats.
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