On 30 June 1947, Dr. Rajendra Prasad (the then President of India) requested Mr. B. G. Kher (the then Prime Minister of Bombay), to elect Dr. Ambedkar immediately.

This was because from 23 June 1947, Dr. Ambedkar ceased to be a member of the Constituent Assembly, as a consequence upon the partition of India in particular Bengal, where from he had got himself elected. Earlier, M.R. Jayakar, a jurist from Bombay, had resigned from the Assembly, and his place was to have been filled by G.V. Mavlankar. The plan was for Mavlankar to preside over the Constituent Assembly when it functioned as the central legislature for the Indian dominion from 15 August 1947 (Rajendra Prasad was in the cabinet and could not preside over the legislature).

But the Congress party decided it would rather have Ambedkar fill Jayakar’s place to ensure his continuance in the Assembly. The presence and participation of Dr. Ambedkar in the framing of the Constitution of India was so indispensable and important that the members of the Constituent Assembly and leaders of the Nation could not think even a day, what to talk about a session, without Dr. Ambedkar in the Assembly’s deliberations. There was no other member in the Assembly so senior, qualified and equipped as Dr. Ambedkar was. None in the Constituent Assembly was associated for such a protracted period as Dr. Ambedkar in the process of framing of the Constitution of India from so early stages. Dr. Ambedkar started contributing in the fathering of the Constitution of the country from the year 1928 by his working with the Simon Commission. This Commission eventually turned into the Round Table Conference which gave the Communal Award 1932 and the Government of India Act, 1935. Constituent Assembly was responsible to give it its final shape. [Tweet “On 29thAugust, 1947, Dr. Ambedkar was unanimously elected as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee by its seven members”],

On 29thAugust, 1947, Dr. Ambedkar was unanimously elected as the Chairman of the Drafting Committee by its seven members which was up only on the previous day. Therefore, Dr. Rajendra Prasad very rightly wrote to direct the then P.M. of Bombay Province :

 “Apart from any other consideration we have found Dr. Ambedkar’s work both in Constituent Assembly and the various committees to which he was appointed to be of such an order as to require that we should not be deprived of his services. As you know, he was elected from Bengal and after the division of the province he was ceased to be a member of the Constituent Assembly commencing from the 14^th July 1947 and it is therefore necessary that he should be elected immediately.”