1962 Indian general election

← 1957 19–25 February 1962 1967 →
494 of the 508 seats in the Lok Sabha 248 seats needed for a majority
Registered	216,361,569
Turnout	55.42% ( 9.98 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Jawaharlal Nehru Shripad Amrit Dange Chakravarti Rajagopalachari Party INC CPI SWA Last election 47.78%, 371 seats 8.92%, 27 seats New Seats won 361 29 18 Seat change 10 2 New Popular vote 51,509,084 11,450,037 9,085,252 Percentage 44.72% 9.94% 7.89% Swing 3.06pp 1.02pp New   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Jayaprakash Narayan Deendayal Upadhyaya Party PSP ABJS Last election 10.41%, 19 seats 5.97%, 4 seats Seats won 12 14 Seat change 7 10 Popular vote 7,848,345 7,415,170 Percentage 6.81% 6.44% Swing 3.6pp 0.47pp
Results by constituency
Prime Minister before election Jawaharlal Nehru INC Prime Minister after election Jawaharlal Nehru INC

General elections were held in India between 19 and 25 February 1962 to elect members of the third Lok Sabha. Unlike the previous two elections, each constituency elected a single member.^[1]

Jawaharlal Nehru won another landslide victory in his third and final election campaign. The Indian National Congress received 44.7% of the vote and won 361 of the 494 elected seats. This was only slightly lower than in the previous two elections and they still held over 70% of the seats in the Lok Sabha.

Results

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	Indian National Congress	51,509,084	44.72	361	–10
	Communist Party of India	11,450,037	9.94	29	+2
	Swatantra Party	9,085,252	7.89	18	New
	Praja Socialist Party	7,848,345	6.81	12	–7
	Bharatiya Jana Sangh	7,415,170	6.44	14	+10
	Republican Party of India	3,255,985	2.83	3	New
	Socialist Party	3,099,397	2.69	6	New
	Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam	2,315,610	2.01	7	New
	Shiromani Akali Dal	829,129	0.72	3	New
	All India Forward Bloc	826,588	0.72	2	0
	Hindu Mahasabha	747,861	0.65	1	0
	Peasants and Workers Party of India	703,582	0.61	0	–4
	Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad	688,990	0.60	2	+2
	Jharkhand Party	467,338	0.41	3	–3
	Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP)	451,717	0.39	2	+2
	Indian Union Muslim League	417,761	0.36	2	New
	All India Ganatantra Parishad	342,970	0.30	4	–3
	Lok Sewak Sangh	281,755	0.24	2	New
	Nutan Maha Gujarat Janata Parishad	195,812	0.17	1	New
	Haryana Lok Samiti	118,667	0.10	1	New
	Tamil National Party	92,389	0.08	0	New
	All Party Hill Leaders Conference	91,850	0.08	1	New
	Socialist Labour Party	80,227	0.07	0	New
	Revolutionary Socialist Party (RCP)	60,813	0.05	0	New
	Gorkha League	46,127	0.04	0	New
	Eastern Indian Tribal Union	12,574	0.01	0	New
	We Tamil	11,372	0.01	0	New
	Independents	12,722,488	11.05	20	–22
Appointed members[a]				14	+3
Total		115,168,890	100.00	508	+3
Valid votes		115,168,890	96.05
Invalid/blank votes		4,735,394	3.95
Total votes		119,904,284	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		216,361,569	55.42

By-elections

In 1963 a by-election was held for the Bilaspur Lok Sabha seat, which was at the time in Madhya Pradesh. The election was won by the Indian National Congress candidate C. Singh, with 86,229 votes, against M. L. Shukla of Jana Sangh with 54,156 votes.^[2] This by-election was needed because the original election for this seat was declared void by the Madhya Pradesh High Court, which judged that the nomination papers of one of the candidates, Bashir Ahmed Qureshi, "was improperly and illegally rejected by the Returning Officer".^[3]