What is the crisis or emergency that is making us do this? I do not think that there is such a crisis or emergency that it is necessary that Section 61 should not be there, that the schedules should be replaced by anything that the Executive Government of the country will propose at any time. Instead of this, why not examine the whole position and frame the new schedules and then place them before the Members of this House? I believe the honourable Members of this House are entitled to be taken into greater confidence than has been the case in this matter. Mr. Gopalaswami Ayyangar merely said that no decision has been taken regarding the elections. That makes us ask all the more as to what then is your intention in placing all these powers in the hands of the Governor-General. If you are going to interfere with the schedules, with all the electioneering rules that are in existence today, why not say so and give some indication to the House and to the country as to the exact change you propose? Why keep us and the country in the dark and give us a surprise and take to yourself your possible power? The constitution and composition of the chambers of the provincial legislature are not small matters. They are matters over which years were spent. It is down on record that the Round Table Conference was not prepared to leave it to the sweet-will of the members of the Parliament. They wanted those schedules to be drafted before them. They were not prepared to leave it to His Majesty’s Orders in Council. The schedules were drafted in collaboration, in the Round Table Conference in the select committees and other committees. Those schedules were not prepared by one single individual. They took months and years; and here you are by one stroke of the pen wanting to take the authority to alter them in any manner whatever. Even the composition of the chambers is not sacred to you.
