Q. With reference to Indian History, the Members of the Constituent Assembly from the Provinces were (UPSC Prelims 2013)
Answer:
elected by the Provincial Legislative Assemblies
Notes: The correct answer is
[C] elected by the Provincial Legislative Assemblies.This is a classic question based upon specific mechanism established by the
Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, which laid the groundwork for the Constituent Assembly.
The Constituent Assembly was neither fully elected by the masses nor fully nominated. It was a
partly elected and partly nominated body:
- Indirect Election: The members representing the British Indian Provinces were not elected directly by the people (which would have required a massive census and adult franchise that wasn't feasible at the time). Instead, they were elected by the members of the Provincial Legislative Assemblies.
- Proportional Representation: The voting was done using the method of proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote.
- Communal Composition: Seats in each province were distributed among three main communities—Muslims, Sikhs, and General (all others)—in proportion to their respective populations.
- The Princely States: Unlike the provincial members, the representatives of the Princely States were nominated by the heads of those states, not elected.
Why the other options are incorrect:
- [A] Directly elected: The right to vote at that time was highly restricted based on tax, property, and education (as per the Government of India Act, 1935). A direct election for the Assembly never took place.
- [B] Nominated by INC/ML: While these parties won the vast majority of the seats in the internal elections, they did not "nominate" the provincial members; they had to win their seats through the legislative voting process.
- [D] Selected by the Government: While the British Government (and the later Interim Government) provided the framework, they did not hand-pick the members based on expertise. Many experts were indeed part of it, but they were there through the election/nomination process mentioned above.