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The Coorg Legislative Assembly election, 1952 was held to constitute the Coorg Legislative Assembly, electing members of legislature for 18 constituencies of the erstwhile Indian State of Coorg. It took place on 27 March 1952 and a total of 87,947 people voted 24 out of 60 candidates to power from the 18 constituencies. This was the only election for the assembly before the State was merged into Mysore State (later renamed as Karnataka) as per the the States Reorganisation Act in 1956.
Contents
Constituencies
A total of 24 seats were up for election from 18 constituencies. There were no seats reserved for Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. There were six two-member constituencies and twelve single-member constituencies.
Contestants
Sixty candidates contested the election. The Indian National Congress presented candidates in all 24 constituencies. There were also 34 independent candidates. The Takkadi Party, which campaigned against merger into Mysore State, contested as independents. The Takkadi Party was led by Pandyanda Belliappa, a veteran Gandhian. A third force in the election was the Communist Party of India, that only presented two candidates (C.B. Monniah in Hudikeri and B.N. Kuttappa in Siddapur). No female candidates were in the fray.
Results
The Indian National Congress (INC) emerged victorious, winning 15 out of the 24 seats. The INC leader C. M. Poonacha won his seat from the Berriathnad constituency, with 1,969 votes (71.37 per cent of the votes polled in the constituency). Independents won the remaining 9 seats. Independence activist Pandyanda Belliappa won his seat Ammathi Nad with 1,667 votes (57.25 per cent of votes polled). Congress candidates got 55.54 per cent of the votes polled statewide, independents 42.88 per cent and the two communist candidates 1.58 per cent. The candidate with the highest percentage of votes polled in his favour was G. Lingarajayya, the INC candidate in Fraserpet, who got 2,375 votes (71.64 per cent).
After the election, Poonacha formed a two-member cabinet, consisting of himself as Chief Minister and Kuttur Mallapa (elected to the assembly from the Sanivarsanthe constituency) as Home Minister.