The Constituent Assembly

The Constituent Assembly
The first task of this Assembly is to free India through a new constitution, to feed the
starving people, and to clothe the naked masses, and to give every Indian the fullest
opportunity to develop himself according to his capacity .
These were the hopes expressed by Jawaharlal Nehru before the Constituent Assembly .20
The Constituent Assembly was to have 389 members. Of these, 296 were to be from British
India and 93 from the princely Indian states. Initially , however, the Constituent Assembly
comprised only members from British India. Election of these were held in July – August 1946.
Of the 210 seats in the general category , Congress won 199. It also won 3 out of the 4 Sikh seats
from Punjab. The Congress also won 3 of the 78 Muslim seats and the 3 seats from Coorg,
Ajmer-Merwara and Delhi. The total Congress tally was 208. The Muslim League won 73 out of
the 78 Muslim seats.
Especially since the Constituent Assembly was not elected on the basis of universal adult
franchise and was thus not as truly representative in character as the Congress had wished and
demanded, and also because only Muslims and Sikhs were recognized as ‘minorities’ deserving
special representation, a special effort was made to see that the Assembly did indeed reflect the
diversity of perspectives present in the country . The Congress Working Committee in early July
1946 specifically instructed the Provincial Congress Committees to include representatives of
Scheduled Castes, Parsis, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, tribals and women in the Congress list
for the general category .