Jnanendra Chandra Majumdar

Jnanendra Chandra Majumdar (also Janendra Chandra Majumder) was an anti-colonial Bengali politician, and a representative of East Pakistan to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.

A long-time associate of Indian National Congress, Majumdar sided with Sarat Bose during the evolution of All India Forward Bloc faction.[1] In 1940, he won a bye-election[lower-alpha 1] from East Mymensingh —a dual-member[lower-alpha 2] rural constituency— to the Bengal Provincial Assembly, drubbing Satish Chandra Ray Chowdhuri, the official Congress candidate, with considerable organizational support from Bose.[1][2][lower-alpha 3]

In 1946, Majumdar re-stood as an independent candidate, but failed[lower-alpha 4] to be re-elected; nonetheless, he was elected[lower-alpha 5] by the Assembly as a Congress candidate to the Constituent Assembly of India.[4][6] After partition, Mymensingh went to Pakistan and Majumdar became a member of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.[7]

Notes
  1. The incumbent legislator (general seat) Birendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury, a local Zamindar and musician of some repute, was promised a Congress nomination to the Legislative Assembly by the Forward Block faction and made to resign.[2]
  2. In these constituencies —surpassing a threshold percentage of Scheduled Caste (SC) voters—, all Hindu candidates were enrollable as candidates but a seat was reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) in addition to the usual seat. Both the seats were electable through the same election under the one person, one vote system. The highest ranked SC candidate was declared winner to the "reserved" seat while whoever else polled the most (or second-most, in case the highest ranked SC candidate won the election) staked claim to the "general" seat.[3]
  3. The overall episode would trigger Congress Working Committee to purge Bose.[2]
  4. Amulya Ranjan Adhikary, a Congress candidate, came first, polling 43,678 votes and won the general seat. Prafulla Ranjan Sarkar, another Congress candidate, came second (but first among SCs), polling 32,207 votes and won the reserved seat. Majumdar managed a paltry 308 votes.[4]
  5. The Cabinet Mission Plan had reserved one seat in the Constitution Assembly per million people of a province. These seats were distributed among Muslims, Sikhs, and General (Hindus and others) category in proportion to their share of population in the province and were to be elected by legislators of the particular community. Bengal Province was allotted with sixty seats, of which twenty seven were reserved for General category and rest for Muslims.[5]

References
  1. Chatterjee, Pranab Kumar (April–September 1994). "Subhas Chandra Bose and Complexities in the Bengal Congress–1939-1940". The Quarterly Review of Historical Studies. 34 (1 & 2): 57. Jnanendra Chandra Majumder, a Bose-group candidate, defeated his rival, the official Congress candidate Satish Chandra Ray Chowdhury, by a big margin in the bye-election from the non-Muslim general constituency of East Mymensingh.
  2. Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam (1957). "Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's reaction on the action taken against Mr. Sarat Bose by the Congress Working Committee". In Kumar, Ravindra (ed.). The Selected Works Of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Vol. X. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. pp. 195–197.
  3. Return showing the results of Elections in India: 1937 (PDF). London: His Majesty's Stationery Office. November 1937. p. 4.
  4. "Vol. III of Press Information Bureau's Morgue and Ref Series: (1) Analysis of the Results of General Elections to the Central and Provincial Legislatures Held In 1945-46 (2) Indian Political Parties, and (3) Provincial Minstries 1937-45". Home Political, ID: HOME_POLITICAL_I_1945_NA_F-79-46. National Archive of India.
  5. Rao, B. Shiva (1968). The Framing of India's Constitution: A Study. Nasik, India: The Indian Institute of Public Administration. pp. 93–95.
  6. Rao, B. Shiva (1968). The Framing of India's Constitution: Select Documents. Vol. I. Nasik, India: The Indian Institute of Public Administration. p. 309.
  7. "Pakistan". The Commonwealth Relations Office List 1952. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 1952. p. 171.
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