180 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
PART - IV
Constituent Assembly
14. The Working Committee is definitely of opinion : -
(i) That the Constituent Assembly is unnecessary and incompetent for dealing with purely constitutional questions.
(ii) That the Constituent Assembly will be useless for dealing with communal questions, for no minority will be prepared to accept the decisions of the majority.
(iii) That the Constituent Assembly would be open to corrupt practices and it will give a free hand to a strong and wealthy party to buy members of the Scheduled Castes to vote - with them.
(iv) That in the Constituent Assembly, the Scheduled Castes would be completely out-numbered and they cannot, therefore, have any effective say in its decisions.
For these reasons, the Working Committee is opposed to the project of a Constituent Assembly.
PART V
Views On Interim Government
- No interim Government shall be acceptable to the Scheduled Castes unless and until the following conditions precedent are fulfilled : (i) That provision is made for proper representation of the Scheduled Castes in the Central Legislative Assembly by the abolition of the nominated official block and filling the seats thus rendered vacant by the nomination of sufficient number of Scheduled Castes representatives.
(ii) That provision is made for representation of the Scheduled Castes by allotting to them in the Executive Council not less than half the seats that may be allotted to the Muslims.