In 1946, prior to the independence of India, members of the Constituent Assembly of India were selected through an indirect election by the elected legislators of the 1946 Indian provincial elections, conducted under the British government's Cabinet Mission plan.
The Indian National Congress led by Jawaharlal Nehru secured a commanding majority, winning 211 of the 296 contested seats. The All-India Muslim League captured 73 seats, successfully consolidating the reserved Muslim constituencies. This led to the creation of the Interim Government of India, headed by Nehru. Despite the successful formation of the Assembly, the Muslim League ultimately boycotted its proceedings, demanding the creation of a separate state of Pakistan. This political deadlock paved the way for the partition of the British India and the eventual establishment of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan and Constituent Assembly of India.
Background
After the 1946 Indian provincial elections were held across all provinces of British India to elect legislative assemblies, the British government sent a Cabinet Mission to the colony. The mission proposed the creation of a single Indian confederation in which the group of provinces would have the freedom to create their own constitutions as self-governing units. According to the proposal, a Constituent Assembly was to be formed, which would then lead to the creation of an interim government. This interim government would convene the assembly. On 30 June 1946, it was announced from the Viceroy's House that the elections would be held in July.
Nominations On 30 June 1946, the Indian National Congress formed a committee for the purpose of the elections in Bengal Province. It was reported that the party would nominate candidates for 25 seats in the province. Meanwhile, before the nomination deadline of 19 July, the party was attempting to find candidates in Punjab Province, and it was reported that they were even considering nominating individuals from outside the party. On 1 July 1946, the All-India Muslim League announced the names of some candidates for the Constituent Assembly elections. On 2 July, it was announced that the Congress had sent election instructions to the heads and secretaries of the provincial branches of its parliamentary party. On 3 July, the Hindu Mahasabha confirmed its participation in the Constituent Assembly elections. On 4 July, the Indian National Congress announced its list of candidates for Bihar Province. On the same day, the All-India Muslim League finalized its candidates for United Provinces and also announced candidates for Bombay Province, Bihar Province, and Punjab Province. On 5 July, League announced more candidates. On the same day, Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai was nominated from Anjuman-i-Watan for the scheduled 12 July election in Baluchistan Province. Meanwhile, the Congress called for applications to nominate candidates from Bengal Province. On 8 July, the Congress announced 7 candidates from Assam Province. After the nomination deadline of 10 July passed, it was revealed that for the 60 Constituent Assembly seats from Bengal Province, 26 Congress and 33 League candidates submitted nominations to the Bengal Legislative Assembly. On 12 July, nominations were submitted for 28 candidates from Bihar Province. On 14 July, the Congress announced 19 candidates from Bombay Province. On 13 July, the Congress finalized 45 candidates for Madras Province. Before the deadline for withdrawal of nominations on 15 July, all Sikh candidates from Punjab Province withdrew their nominations. On the same day, the Congress finalized its candidates for 16 general seats from Central Provinces and Berar. As the representatives from the Baluchistan region were already members of the Shahi Jirga and Quetta Municipality, the All-India Muslim League did not nominate any candidates from that region.
Results On 16 July, from Assam Province, 7 candidates from the Indian National Congress and 3 from the All-India Muslim League were elected. From Bengal Province, 32 Muslim seats were won by the All-India Muslim League, and 1 by the Krishak Praja Party. Additionally, out of 27 general seats, the Indian National Congress won 26. In Central Provinces and Berar, 17 Congress candidates were elected unopposed. From Orissa Province, 8 candidates from the Indian National Congress and 1 independent were elected. In the North-West Frontier Province, out of three seats, 1 went to the All-India Muslim League and 2 to the Indian National Congress. From Punjab Province, 15 seats were won by the All-India Muslim League and 1 by the Unionist Party. However, the Unionist member was later expelled. In Punjab, the Congress had 5 upper-caste Hindus, 1 Harijan, and the Unionists had 1 upper-caste Hindu and 1 Harijan elected. From the Sindh Province, 3 candidates from the All-India Muslim League and 1 from the Indian National Congress were elected, while from Baluchistan, 1 independent candidate won. From the United Provinces, 45 candidates from the Indian National Congress, 7 from the All-India Muslim League, and 3 independents were elected. In Bihar Province, 28 from Indian National Congress, 5 from the All-India Muslim League, and 3 independents won. From Madras Province, 4 Muslim League members were elected unopposed. Indian National Congress won all 45 general seats in Madras Province. From Bombay Province, 19 Congress candidates were elected, along with 2 unopposed Muslim League members. As of 24 July, Congress had won 207 seats, the Muslim League 73, independents 12, and other parties 3 seats.
State/Province Seat Candidate Party Ajmer-Merwara General Mukut Bihari Lai Bhargava AssamGeneral Akshay Kumar Das Basanta Kumar Das Dharanidhar Basumatari Gopinath Bardoloi J. J. Nichols Roy Omeo Kumar Das Rohini Kumar Chaudhari Muslim Abdul Hamid Abdul Matin Choudhury Muhammad Saadulla Baluchistan – Mohammad Khan Jogazai BengalGeneral Arun Chandra Guha Ashutosh Mallick Damber Singh Gurung Debi Prasad Khaitan Dhananjoy Roy Dhirendranath Datta Frank Reginald Anthony H. C. Mookerjee Hem Chandra Naskar Jnanendra Chandra Majumdar Kiran Sankar Roy Lila Roy Prafulla Chandra Ghosh Prafulla Chandra Sen Pramatha Ranjan Thakur Prasanna Deb Raikat Priya Ranjan Sen Radhanath Das Raj Kumar Chakravarty Sarat Chandra Bose Satya Ranjan Bakshi Surendra Mohan Ghose Suresh Chandra Banerjee Syama Prasad Mookerjee Uday Chand Mahtab B. R. Ambedkar Somnath Lahiri Muslim A. M. Abdul Hamid Abdul Kasem Khan Abdulla-al-Mahmood Abul Hashem Bazlul Karim Ebrahim Khan Fazlur Rahman Formuzul Huq Ghiyasuddin Pathan H. S. Suhrawardy Haniidul Huq Chowdhury I. H. Qureshi K. Nuruddin K. Shahabuddin Khwaja Nazimuddin Liaquat Ali Khan M. A. Ispahani M. Altaf Ahmed M. Azizul Haque M. S. Ali Mahmud Hussain Mazharul Huq Md. Abdiilla-hel Baqui Mohammad Hassan Mohammad Hussain Malik Mujibar Rahman Khan Raghib Ahsan S. S. Ikramullah Serajul Islam Shabbir Ahmad Usmani Tamizuddin Khan Yusuf Mirza A. K. Fazlul Huq BiharGeneral Amiyo Kumar Ghosh Anugrah Narayan Singh Banarsi Prasad Jhunjhunwala Bhagwat Prasad Boniface Lakra Brajeswar Prasad Chandrika Ram Devendranath Samanta Dipnarain Singh Guptanath Singh Jadubans Sahay Jagdish Narain Lal Jagjivan Ram K. T. Shah Kamaleshwari Prasad Yadav Mahesh Prasad Singh Narain Mahtha P. K. Sen Phulan Prasad Varma Raghunandan Prasad Rajendra Prasad Rameshwar Prasad Singh Ramnarain Singh Sachchidananda Sinha Sarangdhar Singh Sarojini Naidu Satyanarain Sinha Sri Krishna Sinha Jaipal Singh Kameshwar Singh Shyam Nandan SahayMuslim Hussain Imam Latifur Rahman Muhammad Tahir Saiyid Jaffar Imam Tajamal HussainBombayGeneral Alban D’Souza Indian National B. G. Kher B. M. Gupte H. V. Pataskar Hansa Mehta K. M. Jedhe K. M. Munshi Kanyalal Desai Khandubhai Desai M. R. Masani N. V. Gadgil R. M. Nalwade R. R. Diwakar S. K. Patil S. N. Mane S. Nijalingappa Vallabhbhai Patel Shankarrao Deo Shantilal ShahMuslim Abdul Kader Sheikh I. I. ChundrigarCentral Provinces and BerarGeneral Amrit Kaur Bhagwantrao Annabhan Mandloi Brijlal Nandlal Biyani Cecil Edward Gibbon Govinddas Guru Agamdas Agarmandas Hari Singh Gaur Hari Vishnu Kamath Hemchandra Jagobaji Khandekar Laxman Slirawan Bhatkar Punjabrao Shamrao Deshmukh Ravi Shankar Sukla Rustomji Khursedji Sidhwa Shankara Tryambak Dharmadhikari Thakur Chhedilal V. R. Kalappa Muslim Kazi Syed Karimuddin Coorg General C. M. Punachcha MadrasGeneral Ammu Swaminathan Indian National Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyar B. Gopala Reddi B. Shiva Rao C. Perumalswami Reddiar C. Rajagopalachari C. Subramaniam D. Govind Doss Dakshayani Velayudhan G. Durga Bai H. Sitarama Reddi Jerome D’Souza K. Chandramouli K. Kamaraj Nadar K. Madhava Menon K. Santhanam Kala Venkata Rao L. Krishnaswami Bharathi M. Anantasayanam Iyengar M. C. Virabahu Pillai Muthia Chettiar N. G. Ranga N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar N. Sanjeev Reddi O. P. Ramaswami Reddiar O. V. Alagesan P. Kakkan P. Kunhiraman P. L. Narasimha Raju P. M. Velayudhapani P. Subbarayan Pattabhi Sitarainayya Ramakrishna Ranga Rao Raninath Goenka S. H. Prater S. Nagappa T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar T. J. M. Wilson T. Prakasam T. T. Krishnamachari U. Srinivasa Mallayya V. C. Kesava Rao V. I. Muniswami Pillai V. Nadimuthu Pillai V. Subramaniam Muslim A. Mahabub Ali Baig B. Poker Haji Abdul Sathar H. Issaq Sait K. T. M. Ahmed IbrahimNorth West Frontier ProvinceMuslim Abul Kalam Azad Abdul Ghaffar Khan Bahadur Khan OrissaGeneral B. Das Indian National Biswanath Das Bodhram Dube Harekrishna Mahatab Malati Chowdhury Nanda Kishore Das Rajkrishna Bose Santanu Kumar Das Laxminarayan Sahu PunjabGeneral Bakhshi Sir Tek Chand Chaman Lal Gopi Chand Bhargava Mehr Chand Khanna Prithvi Singh Azad Shri Ram Sharma Chaudhri Harbhaj Ram Rao Bahadur Chaudhri Suraj Mal Muslim Abdur Rab Nishtar Abu Bakar Ahmad Haleem Begum Jahan Ara Shah Nawaz Chaudhri Muhammad Hassan Feroz Khan Noon Ghazanfar Ali Khan Iftikhar Hussain Khan Khan Bahadur Chaudhri Nazir Ahmad Khan Khan Bahadur Sheikh Karamat Ali Mahomed Ali Jinnah Malik Omar Hayat Muhammad Iftikhar-ud-din Mumtaz Muhammad Khan Daultana Syed Amjad Ali Syed Ghulani Bhik Nairang Muzaffar Ali Khan Qazilbaslh Sikh Harnam Singh Kartar Singh Ujjal Singh Pratap Singh Sindh General Jairamdas Daulatram Muslim Abdus Sattar M. A. Khuhro M. H. GazdarUnited ProvincesGeneral A. Dharam Dass Indian National Ajit Prasad Jain Algu Rai Shastri Balkrishna Sharma Banshidhar Misra Bhagwan Din Damodar Swamp Dayal Das Bhagat Dharam Prakash Feroz Gandhi Gopal Narain Gopinath Srivastava Govind Ballabh Pant Govind Malaviya Hargovind Pant Hariharnath Shastri Hriday Nath Kunzru J. B. Kripalani Jaspat Rai Kapoor Jawaharlal Nehru Jogendra Singh Jugal Kishore Kailash Nath Katju Kamala Chaudhuri Kamlapati Tewari Khurshed Lal Maheswar Dayal Seth Masuria Din Mohan Lal Saxena Phool Singh Pragi Lal Purnima Banerjee Purshottamdas Tandan R. V. Dhulekar Ram Chandra Gupta S. Radhakrishnan Shibban Lal Saxena Shri Krishna Dutt Paliwal Sri Prakasa Sucheta Kripalani Sunder Lal Venkatesh Narain Tewari Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit Vishambhar Dayal Tripathi Jagannath Baksh Singh Jwala Prasad Srivastava Padampat SinghaniaMuslim Amir Haider Khan Begum Aizaz Rasul Chaudhuri Kaliquzzaman Maulana Hasrat Mohani Maulvi Aziz Ahmad Khan Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan S. M. Rizwanullah Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Indian National Delhi General Deshbandhu Gupta
Aftermath