1967 Punjab Assembly election

Who: The voters of the new Punjab and the parties that fought for its 104 Assembly seats: the Congress, Sant Fateh Singh's Akali Dal, the Akali Dal of Master Tara Singh, the Jana Sangh and the Communist parties. Chief Minister Giani Gurmukh Singh Musafir of the Congress lost his own seat to the Communist Satyapal Dang.

What: This was the first election to the Assembly of the Punjabi-speaking state that came into being on 1 November 1966, held in February 1967. Turnout was 71.18 per cent of 6,311,063 electors, according to Wikipedia's table of the Election Commission's figures. The Congress won 48 seats with about 37.5 per cent of the votes. The Sant Akali Dal won 24 seats with about 20.5 per cent, the Jana Sangh 9, the Communist Party of India 5, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) 3, the Republican Party 3, Master Tara Singh's Akali Dal 2 with about 4.5 per cent, the Socialist Party 1 and independents 9.

The two Akali Dals fought each other. Master Tara Singh's followers demanded a special status for the new Punjab, like Jammu and Kashmir, and Gurmit Singh says their slogans spoke of the “creation of Sikhistan”. Grewal writes that this idea of a Sikh homeland did not go well with the mass of the Sikhs. The Sant's group fought in alliance with non-Congress parties, above all the CPI. Gurmit Singh writes that the Sikh peasantry voted mainly for it, partly because Sikh farmers had come to see the Congress as a Hindu organisation after its opposition to the Punjabi Suba. Grewal adds that a sizeable section of the Sikh peasantry still voted Congress. The Jana Sangh, which had opposed the Punjabi Suba, won nine seats.

No party had a majority, and the Congress failed for the first time since 1947 to win one. On 4 March seven non-Congress parties formed an alliance, the United Front, and chose Justice Gurnam Singh as leader. He took office on 8 March. The ministry that followed is told on its own page.

Where: Punjab, in all its 104 constituencies.

Why it mattered: The poll ended the Congress's hold on the state government and produced its first non-Congress ministry. It also showed the Sikh vote split three ways, between the Sant's Akali Dal, Master Tara Singh's Akali Dal and the Congress. Khushwant Singh writes that the larger Akali group under the Sant said all that remained was to redraw boundaries along linguistic lines and transfer Chandigarh to Punjab, while the smaller group under Master Tara Singh wanted a state in which Sikhs would be in a majority. The Master group won two seats, the Sant's group 24. The next election, a mid-term poll, came in February 1969.