§ Mr. Priceasked the Secretary of State for India whether, with a view to meeting the need for creating an Indian Constituent Assembly to frame a Constitution, he will consider an amendment to the present electoral law so as to embrace a wider franchise than is admitted at present under the Government of India Act.
§ Mr. AmeryThe suggestion in the so-called Cripps offer was that the constitution-making body should be elected by the members of the Lower Houses and the Provincial Legislatures. The franchise qualifications for the electors of these Houses inevitably vary from province to province but are already liberal. There would, I fear, be great practical and political difficulty in attempting to devise a variation of the existing franchise machinery as set out in Schedule VI of the Act of 1935.