Tamil Nadu has never failed to surprise voters and poll pundits alike. This trend was evident in the first general election to the Lok Sabha. In the first poll held in the then Madras State (which included parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala) during January and February 1952, Congress stalwarts, including P. Subbaroyan, Ramnath Goenka and T. Chengalvarayan tasted defeat.
For this study, seats in the existing territorial limits of Tamil Nadu were only considered while assessing the performance of various political parties in the 1952 election. Though the Madras State had 75 seats, including 13 double-member seats in a total of 62 constituencies, only 38 seats, spread over 31 constituencies, were taken into account as they formed part of the existing State.
Subbaroyan, who was Chief Minister of the Madras Presidency during 1926-30, lost to an independent, S.K. Baby alias Kandaswami, by a margin of nearly 17,000 votes. Goenka, a sitting MP and one of the doyens of the Indian media, was beaten by V. Munuswami of the Tamil Nadu Toilers (TNT) Party in the Tindivanam (general-member seat) constituency while Chengalvarayan lost to A. Krishnaswami of the Commonweal Party in Kancheepuram. Even though the DMK, which was founded in 1949, did not take part in the election then, it backed the TNT and the Commonweal Party, led by S. Ramaswami Padayachi and M.A. Manikavelu Naicker, for having supported the Dravidian movement. According to the book The History of the DMK (Volume 1), eight successful candidates had the backing of the party.
