A Candidate Was Declared As MLA Despite Not Getting Deposit!

Everyone knows how a candidate is seen if he or she won't get a deposit in the elections. However, a candidate was elected as the MLA despite not getting the deposit. There is nothing to get shocked about here as this happened for real.

This unexpected incident happened in Andhra Pradesh in 1952 in Visakhapatnam. Nine candidates contested the elections. While there were 60,780 voters in the constituency only 25,511 voters out of them cast their vote.

7,064 votes were polled for CPI candidate Mullapudi Veerabhadram while independent candidate Jagannadha Raju managed to get just 4347 votes. 3109 votes were polled for Congress candidate L.D.A Rao and 1158 votes were polled for Krishikar Lok Party candidate ET Nagaiah.

Considering the number of votes that were polled, a candidate should get at least 8504 votes which translates to one-third. The Election officers refused to declare CPI Candidate Mullapudi Veerabhadram as the winner who got just 7.064 votes. However, the officers announced him as a winner with the demand that getting even one vote extra than the opponent should be seen as a victory. However, the deposit process was changed in 1955 saying that a candidate should get one-sixth of votes for deposits. This was brought to see that no such incidents repeat.