Facts about Constituent Assembly Of India, Members List

This article gives insights about Constituent Assembly of India, members of constituent assembly, basic information and facts about constituent assembly. This article also answers question like how many female members of constituent assembly were present, members of drafting committee of constituent assembly of India, inaugural meeting of meeting of constituent assembly was presided by whom etc.

Constituent assembly of India was formed based on recommendations of Cabinet Mission to draft the constitution of India. It was founded on 6th Dec 1946, worked for about 3 years and eventually dissolved on 24 Jan 1950. The British gave their formal acceptance for the forming the Constituent assembly of India on 8 Aug 1940. The members of Constituent assembly of India were elected by system called single transferable vote of proportional representation from all provincial assemblies. Initially there were 389 elected members of constituent assembly out of which 292 were representatives of states, 93 were from princely states, and four from provinces of Delhi, Coorg, Ajmer and Baluchistan (one each).

Key Facts about Constituent Assembly of India

1. Constitution of India was framed by Constituent Assembly which consisted of 389 members, out of which 292 were from Provinces, 93 from Princely states, 3 from Chief Commissioner Provinces and 1 from Baluchistan.
2. Constituent assembly held its first meeting on Dec 9, 1946 and elected Dr Sachhidanand Sinha, the oldest member of assembly as the provisional President.
3. On Dec 11, 1946 the assembly elected Dr Rajendra Prasad as its Chairman and Dr H.C. Mukherjee as vice president. B.N. Rau was appointed as constitutional adviser.
4. Strength of the assembly was reduced to 299 (229 representing Provinces and 70 representing Princely States) following withdrawal of  Muslim League Members after participation of country.
5. There were 9 female members of constituent assembly. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Hansa Mehta, Durgabai Deshmukh, Dakshayani Velayudhan and G. Durgabai were the prominent one.
6. Jawaharlal Nehru presented an objective resolution on 13 Dec 1946 in the assembly. This resolution served as the guideline for framing up the constitution. Later this resolution was accepted as preamble to Indian Constitution. 
7. B.N. Rau made the first initial draft constitution based on his research of different countries constitution.
8. The Constituent Assembly set up 13 committees for framing the constitution. On the basis of reports of these committees, a detail draft of the constitution was prepared by a seven member Drafting Committee under the Chairmanship of Dr B R Ambedkar.
9. Constituent assembly prepared first draft constitution on 26 Nov 1949.
10. The draft constitution was published in Jan 1948 and people were given 8 months to discuss the draft and propose amendments.
11. After discussions and suggestions received the same was finally adopted on Nov 26, 1949. Though the major part of constitution came into affect on Jan 26, 1950, Provisions related to Election, Citizenship, Provisional Parliament etc came into effect on Nov 26, 1949.
12. Constituent assembly finalised the constitution and made it to effect on 26 Jan 1950. This day is better remembered as Republic day of India. Constituent assembly itself became the provisional parliament of India and continued working till the first general elections were held in year 1952.

Important Members of Constituent Assembly of India

• B. N. Rau – Diplomat and constitutional advisor, had key role in drafting committee.
• Jawaharlal Nehru – later elected as Prime Minister of India.
• Vallabh Bhai Patel – later served as Deputy Prime Minister and Home minister in first cabinet.
• B. R. Ambedkar – chairman of drafting committee, later worked as first law minister
• Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad – later served as first cabinet minister for education
• Rajendra Prasad – served as first President of India
• C Rajagopalachari – served as first and last Governor General of free India.
• Sarat Chandra Bose – Barrister and freedom fighter, elder brother of Subhash Chandra Bose
• Krishna Sinha – later worked as first Chief Minister of Bihar
• Anugrah Narayan Sinha – known as Bihar Vibhuti, served as deputy CM and finance minister of Bihar
• N Gopalaswami Ayyangar – instrumental in creating and implementing Article 370
• Rafi Ahmad Kidwai – socialist and activist, later served as first cabinet minister of communication
• Shyam Nandan Prasad Mishra – freedom fighter turned politician, served as minister for planning
• Asaf Ali – freedom fighter, later served as first ambassador to US from India.
• Syama Prasad Mookerjee – served as minister for Industries in first Nehru cabinet. Left Congress due to differences with Nehru and established Bhartiya Jan Sangha in 1951.
• Moturi Satyanarayana – member of drafting committee, instrumental in making Hindi as official language
• Amrit Kaur – freedom fighter and social activist, first cabinet health minister, first woman minister of India.
• Hansa Mehta – writer and social activist, became Vice Chairman Human Rights commission in UN in 1950
• Kailashnath Katju – famous lawyer, freedom fighter, worked as CM of MP, union minister at various posts
• John Mathai – economist, served as first railway minister, later as finance minister
• S. Radhakrishnan – philosopher and thinker, first vice president of India

Some other important members of Constituent Assembly were – Binodanand Jha, N G Ranga, Deep Narayan Singh, Gopinath Bordoloi, Sir Syed Muhammad Saadulla, T T Krishnamachari, Rameshwar Prasad Sinha, K M Munshi, C Subramaniam, Durgabai Deshmukh, Krishna Ballabh Sahay, Frank Anthony, Pratap Singh Kairon, P Subbarayan

Female members of Constituent Assembly

Important members of Constituent Assembly from Muslim League

Note these members later withdrew their candidature after separation of Pakistan

• Md Ali Jinnah, Abdul Hamid, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, Md. Akram Khan, Ebrahim Khan, Fazlur Rahman, Beghum Sahaista, Liaqat ali Khan, Khwaja Nazimuddin, Ghulam Mohammad, Mian Mumtaz Mohammad, Zafarullah Khan, Iftikhar Hussain Khan, Feroz Khan Noon, Beghum Jahan Ara, Abdus Sattar, S.B Nawab Mohammad Khan Jogezai.
• The only member representing Baluchistan was S.B Nawab Mohammad Khan Jogezai.

Important Committees of Constituent Assembly

There were total 23 different small and big committees for creating constitution. The eight most important committees are enlisted as follows-

	Committee	Head
1	Drafting Committee	Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
2	Union Powers Committee	Jawaharlal Nehru
3	Union Constitution Committee	Jawaharlal Nehru
4	Provincial Constitution Committee	Vallabhbhai Patel
5	Advisory committee on Fundamental Rights, Minorities, Tribal areas	Vallabhbhai Patel
	Fundamental Rights sub committee	J B Kriplani
	Minorities Sub committee	H.C Mukherjee
	North East Tribal areas sub committee	Gopinath Bordoloi
	Excluded and partially excluded areas sub committee	A V Thakkar
6	Rules of Procedure committee	Dr. Rajendra Prasad
7	States committee	Jawaharlal Nehru
8	Steering committee	Dr. Rajendra Prasad