The Constituent Assembly Chaired by Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, was elected for undivided India and it held its first sitting on 9th Dec.1946, re-assembled on the 14th August 1947, as The Sovereign Constituent Assembly for the dominion of India.

In regard to its composition the members were elected by indirect election by the members of The Provisional Legislative Assemblies (lower house only).

According to the schemes recommended by the Cabinet the essentials of the

Schemes were as follows: -

1. Each Province and each Indian State or group of States were allotted the total no. of eats proportional to their respective population roughly in the ratio of 1:1000000. As a result The Provinces were to elect 292 members while the Indian States were allotted a minimum of 93 seats.

2. The seats in each Province were distributed among the three main communities, Muslims, Sikh and general, in proportion to their respective populations.

3. Members of each community in the Provisional Legislative Assembly elected their own representatives by the method of proportional representations with single transferable vote.

4. The method of selection in the case of representatives of Indian States was to be determined by consultation.

Unfortunately as a result of a partition under the plan of June3, 1947.

The territories, which fell under Pakistan and those members who were part of The Constituent Assembly, ceased to be members of the Constituent Assembly, which re-assembled on the 31st Oct.1947.

The members of the house was reduced to 299 of these 284 was actually present on the 26th Nov. 1949 and appended their signature to the Constitution as finally passed.

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