Vol. 15 · pages 146–150

129PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES on the population basis a State is getting representation ; and we are upgrading a great deal where a State is not getting any representation at all. It has really got to be done by equitable consideration and not by logic and not necessarily by population. Then I come to Kashmir. As the House will see, there is a special provision with regard to Kashmir and that provision differs in one important respect and that is that the Kashmir representatives will not be elected by the people. Now, the reason for making an exception in regard to Kashmir is this, namely, that Kashmir is a part of India in a very attenuated manner, so to say. The Article relating to Kashmir says that only Article 1 applies, that is to say, Kashmir is part of the territories of India. The application of the other provisions of the Constitution, that Article says, will depend upon the President, who may in consultation with the Government of Kashmir apply the rest of the Articles with such modifications and alterations as he may determine. As the honourable House may probably know, there has been already issued an order in regard to Kashmir in which the President has modified the Article providing for the representation of States in Parliament by stating that he shall nominate the represntatives of Kashmir in consultation with the Government of Kashmir. I think it was issued on the 26th January. That being so, there is really no room for this Parliament to make any provision with regard to the representation of Kashmir in Parliament in a manner different from what has been provided in the Bill. I think that nothing more is necessary for the purpose of elucidating how the First Schedule has been brought into being. I now come to the fixation of the total seats in the State Legislative Assemblies as has been shown in the Second Schedule. With regard to this matter also, we have had to conform to the provisions of Article 170. That Article lays down two rules. One rule is that there should be not more than one seat for every 75,000 of the population. The second rule is that the maximum number of seats of a State Legislative Assembly shall be 500 and the minimum shall be 60. In framing the Second Schedule, the following considerations

130 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES have been taken into account. The first consideration is that the total number of seats in any Legislative Assembly is not unduly large. The second consideration is that the total number of seats fixed for each State Legislative Assembly is an integral multiple of the State quota in Parliament. The reason for adopting this second rule that the one should form a sort of integral multiple of the other is because by doing so it would be easy to work out the provisions of Article 55. Hon. Members will appreciate that Article 55 provides that notwithstanding the fact that the total membership of the different Legislative Assemblies in the States may be different there shall be equal valuation of the votes cast in the Presidential election. Now, it is quite obvious that this equal valuation would become easier of calculation if we had the total seats in the Legislative Assembly of any State forming an integral multiple of the number of seats for that State in Parliament. That is why the seats have been allotted accordingly. It is, of course, to be remembered that the multiple is not the same in all the cases but the multiple is there. That is how the seats in the Second Schedule have been calculated. Shri Syamnandan Sahaya : Therefore, the State Assemblies have different numbers in different States. It is unlike the Parliament where you have a fixed number. Dr. Ambedkar : Yes. The maximum is 500 and the minimum is 60, but different numbers may be fixed for different States. There is no uniformity prescribed in the Constitution. We have a wide limit within which we can fix different totals for different States. Shri Syamnandan Sahaya : Could we know what is the basis in the different States ? Say 100,000 voters per seat in Assam; 110,000 in Bihar; 120,000 in U.P. and so on? Dr. Ambedkar : After I finish my speech, if you put that point clearly to me, I shall be able to explain. So much for the fixation of seats in Parliament and in the Legislative Assemblies of the different States. Now, I come to registration of voters. The principles adopted for registration of voters for Parliamentary constituencies as

131PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES well as for State Legislative Assembly constituencies are the same. There is no difference. Consequently, I think that it would be enough if I explain the provisions relating to registration of voters for Parliamentary constituencies. The first principle is what is laid down in Clause 15 of the Bill which says that every constituency is to have an electoral roll on the basis of which election will be conducted. The preparation of an electoral roll is therefore an obligatory thing and a condition precedent for election. The second principle is that for being registered on an electoral roll a person should not suffer from the disqualifications mentioned in Clause 16. He should not be a person who is not a citizen of India; or a person who is of unsound mind or a person who is guilty of offences relating to corrupt practices and election offences, then, he becomes eligible for being enrolled or registered in that constituency. The next principle is that a voter can be registered and that, in one and not more than one constituency. Even in one constituency he is to be registered only once. Then we have what are called “conditions of registration”, which are laid down in Clause 19. One is that he must be ordinarily resident for not less than 180 days during what is called a “qualifying period”. Secondly, he must not be less than twenty-one years of age on the qualifying date. Now, with regard to qualifying date and qualifying period, I think it is necessary that I should make the position a little clearer. On reading the Bill, the House will realise that there are really two different provisions for qualifying period and qualifying date. There is one qualifying period and one qualifying date for the first electoral roll, and there is another provision for qualifying period and qualifying date for subsequent electoral rolls. Now, for the first electoral roll the qualifying period is from 1st April 1947 to 31st March 1948. The qualifying date for the first electoral roll is the first day of January 1949. Now, these provisions which I have referred to with regard to the qualifying period and the qualifying date for the first electoral roll are really, so to say, beyond our control now, because they were fixed by the Constituent Assembly when it passed a resolution that the election should take place at a certain

132 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES period in the year 1950 and so on, and that accordingly preparation should be made for the registration of voters, and preparation of electoral roll. Now so much work has been done under the authority of the Resolution passed by the Constituent Assembly that it is not possible for us to make any change in the basis which was laid down by the Constitutent Assembly. But with regard to the subsequent electoral roll we have said that the qualifying period shall be the calendar year immediately preceding the first of March in each year and the qualifying date shall be 1st March in each year. Now with regard to the residential qualification, about which I know there has been a great deal of perturbance in the minds of Members, I should like to draw the attention of the House to clause 20 of the Bill which defines what is called “ordinarily resident”. I would not at this stage enter into any further discussion of the matter, but if a point is raised I shall be glad to give further explanation. In this very clause provision has been made to define or to specify what would be the constituency of any particular person employed in the armed forces. My attention is drawn to the fact that there is no provision made with regard to persons who have to change their residence by reason of the fact that they are serving in the State and the State either transfers them permanently from one area to another or sends them out of the country. It is perhaps necessary to make a provision to cover cases of this sort and I propose to move an amendment to add a sub-clause to clause 20 to deal with cases of this sort. Now there is one other provision with regard to the preparation of the electoral roll to which I would like to draw the attention of hon. Members. The first is this : that the existing roll which will now be prepared will be operative till the 30th of September 1952, that is to say, if any election takes place up to the 30th of September 1952 the electoral roll that would now be prepared will be regarded as operative, although it is probably a stale one — but there is no help to that. Subsequent electoral rolls however would be prepared every year and that will be seen from clauses 23 and 24. This

133PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES point is important because it is generally agreed that an electoral roll should not be older than, say, for instance, six months, or three months from the date on which election takes place. Under the old English law there was a provision that electoral rolls should be prepared every six months. But they themselves found that this provision was so costly that they have now extended this period to twelve months. It is felt by the Government of India that in a vast electorate which we are likely to have under adult suffrage system, the cost of two revisions in one year would be enormous and consequently we have adopted the modest procedure of having only annual revisions of the electoral rolls. As I stated, these rules which apply to the electoral roll in Parliamentary constituencies are also made applicable to the preparation of electoral rolls, to the State Legislative Assemblies and to the State Councils and, therefore, I need not refer to them here at all. Then I come to the last part of the Bill which deals with the composition of the Upper Chambers in the provinces, hon. Members will remember that there was a considerable division of opinion as to whether there should be second chambers in the provinces or not. The Constituent Assembly left this matter to the choice of the representatives of the various provincial assemblies in the Constituent Assembly to decide for themselves as to whether they should have or should not have second chambers. Some Members decided that there should be upper chambers for their provinces and others decided to the contrary. Consequently, the Constitution makes provision for the upper chamber for those provinces or those States where their representatives agreed to have such upper chambers. Now the Constitution also lays down how the upper chamber is to be constituted—that will be found in article 171. There again, much of the composition of the upper chambers has really been laid down by the Constitution itself. It says that the maximum of total membership shall not exceed one-fourth of the total of the Lower House and the minimum shall not be less than forty. That is one priniciple that is laid down in article 171. The other principle that is laid down is that about the distribution