PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 163
Shri Syamnandan Sahaya: That is Jaspat Roy Kapoor ?
Shri Gautam: If he is a Congress-man.
Shri Tyagi: I am an Ex-General Secretary.
Shri Gautam: Dr. Ambedkar has no personal axe of his own to grind. He is not interested in the U.P. At the request of some of us, he has reduced the number. He is neither in favour of 72 nor of 86. It is we who requested him and he has accepted our request. We are obliged to him for that. Therefore I oppose the amendment moved by Mr. Jaspat Roy Kapoor.
- Dr. Ambedkar : Sir, I do not think I can at this late stage enter into any elaborate arguments with regard to the various matters, constitutional or otherwise, which have been raised. I do not think we have violated the Constitution as my friend Mr. T. T. Krishnamachari supposes in giving the allotted seats mentioned in the First Schedule to Part C States. We are perfectly within our constitutional rights in allotting the seats in this schedule. With regard to the amendment of the Third Schedule my friend Pandit Kunzru would have seen that it is only in one case as a matter of fact that the total number is reduced and that is with regard to Uttar Pradesh.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Madras also.
Dr. Ambedkar: I was coming to it. I am taking Uttar Pradesh for my observation. There I am confronted with the fact that the State Government is very chary of increasing the size of the Upper Chamber and sitting as we are at Delhi, I do not like to sit in judgment over the decision of the State Government as to what is the suitable number for their Upper Chamber. They have thought that 72 is the proper and sufficient number for their Upper Chamber and it is on that basis that I have reduced 86 to 72. With regard to the changes made in the total number of Bihar, Bombay and Madras, I might say that the proposition enunciated by Mr. Tyagi today in the informal meeting that the total number should be divisible by 12 did appeal to me and it is for that reason that
- P. D., Vol. 4, Part II, 20th April 1950, p. 3095-96.