In 1953, a by-election was held for the Calcutta South East seat in the Lok Sabha (Lower House of the Parliament of India).

The by-election was called after the death of the incumbent parliamentarian from Calcutta South East, Syama Prasad Mukherjee.

In the 1951–1952 Indian parliamentary election the Calcutta South East seat had been won by the Bharatiya Jan Sangh leader Syama Prasad Mukherjee.

[2] Due to the dramatic circumstances of Mukherjee's death and the complexity of the Calcutta politics (whilst the constituency was seen as a Congress stronghold it had also elected a Bharatiya Jan Sabha MP as well as communist members of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly) the by-poll caught attention in national politics.

Whilst Pal was a senior jurist with international recognition, his opponent was a young lawyer linked to the labour movement.

Sadhan Gupta had positioned himself in the legal community through the 1945 case "Emperor vs Shibnath Banerjee" and represented many persons affected by preventive detentions.

[11] At the time of the by-poll Mitter was the president of the Council for the Protection of the Rights of Minorities, a body with links to the Hindu Mahasabha.

[13][14] However, within the FB(MG) there was a sector (including leaders such as Satyapriya Banerjee, Amar Bose, Suhrid Mallick Chowdhury and Ram Chatterjee) that argued in favour of support to the CPI candidate.