1972 Gird by-election

State assembly by-election in Madhya Pradesh, India Gird seat in the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly by-election, 1972 India By-election 100px Communist Party of India South Asian Communist Banner.png Balkrishna Sharma 12,704 43.63% Bharatiya Jana Sangh No flag.svg Maheshdutta Mishra 11,915 40.92% In June 1972 a by-election was held in for the Gird seat of the Legislative Assembly of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The by-election was called after the resignation of the sitting MLA Vijaya Raje Scindia. Scindia, once the Rajmata of Gwalior, had won both the Gird Legislative Assembly seat as well the Bhind seat of the Lok Sabha (lower house of the parliament of India) in the 1971 general election by impressive margins, standing for the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS).Election Commission of India. STATISTICAL REPORT ON GENERAL ELECTIONS, 1971 TO THE FIFTH LOK SABHA - VOLUME I (NATIONAL AND STATE ABSTRACTS & DETAILED RESULTS) https://web.archive.org/web/20140718000000/http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/StatisticalReports/LS_1971/Vol_I_LS71.pdf July 18, 2014 Election Commission of India. STATISTICAL REPORT ON GENERAL ELECTION, 1972 TO THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MADHYA PRADESH In the March 1972 Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly election in Gird she defeated the Indian National Congress candidate Ghuraiya Sarnamsingh with a margin of over 12,000 votes. After the elections she had to choose between the two posts, and decided to retain her Lok Sabha seat and resigned from the Gird Legislative Assembly seat.Christophe Jaffrelot The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to the 1990s : Strategies of Identity-building, Implantation and Mobilisation (with Special Reference to Central India) https://books.google.com/books?id=iVsfVOTUnYEC&pg=PA251 1999 Penguin Books India 978-0-14-024602-5 251 At the time Gird was seen as a Scindia-BJS stronghold. The main contenders of the by-election were Maheshdutta Mishra and Balkrishna Sharma.Link: Indian Newsmagazine, Vol. 14, Part 1 https://books.google.com/books?id=3rcxAQAAIAAJ 1972 28 Mishra was the candidate put forth by Scindia and represented the BJS. Scindia and other prominent BJS personalities conducted speaking tours across the vast constituency to support Mishra's candidacy, at least 50 jeeps were used the purpose. Sharma was a Communist Party of India leader with 35 years experience in working with the peasant movement in the area. The Indian National Congress had declared its support for Sharma's candidature, but local Congress leaders in Gwalior offered little support for him. The election was held on 5 June 1972.Asian Recorder, Vol. 18 https://books.google.com/books?id=sQMuAQAAIAAJ 1972 viii Sharma narrowly won the seat, largely due to support from the peasants. He got 12,704 votes compared to 11,915 votes for Mishra. There were also six independent candidates in the fray; B. Kushwah (1,868 votes), J. Raosahib (1,682 votes), Nathu (238 votes), Roopchand (110 votes) and G. Sharma (70 votes).Election Commission of India. Bye-election results 1952-95 All independent candidates lost their deposits. The French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot argued that "[t]he victory of the people's candidate over that of the 'palace' was the abiding image of this contest. Nor must one forget that it happened after the passing of a law establishing a ceiling of 10 acres on landholdings owned by individuals and 15 acres on those owned by families of five individuals, a measure which Congress had promised before the elections and was supported by the CPI." According to the publication Link the election outcome was "a significant event in the anti-feudal wind blowing in the northern districts of Madhya Pradesh". The election sparked internal dissent within the BJS, with some sectors beginning to call for a break with the relationship with the Scindias. Detailed result 1972 Gird by-election Communist Party of India Balkrishna Sharma 43.63 Bharatiya Jana Sangh Maheshdutta Mishra 40.92 Independent (politician) B. Kushwah Independent (politician) J. Raosahib Independent (politician) R. M. Singh Independent (politician) Nathu Independent (politician) Roopchand Independent (politician) G. Sharma Communist Party of India Bharatiya Jana Sangh References Category:By-elections in India Category:1972 elections in India 1972 Gird Category:1970s in Madhya Pradesh Category:Gwalior district