Till the late sixties students of Indian elections and party system used to complain of the dearth of relevant and reliable data needed for undertaking systematic empirical studies in these two areas. The position has changed since then substantially, thanks largely to the efforts of some scholars to develop a data base with the help of officially published statistics, newspaper accounts and records available with various archives and other governmental agencies. Elections in Uttar Pradesh by Reeves et. al. is the product of one such effort.
The authors have put together in this volume a wide range of information about elections in UP to the upper and lower houses of the provincial and the central legislatures and the Constituent Assembly. The information provided includes detailed constituency returns with names and. party affiliations of the contestants. This is done for all general elections and bye-elections from 1920-1946, plus similar information on the triennial elections to the upper house of UP assembly and the ‘Primary elections to scheduled caste seats, both of which were held after 1937. Also included is an annotated list of election petitions arising out of elections to the Central Assembly and to both houses of the UP legislature. Finally, there is a bibliography covering electoral rules and regulations and sources of election results.