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representatives to the Constituent Assembly must approximate in so far as was possible to the method adopted in the Provinces. However, in the Press Statement issued by the Cabinet Mission on 25th May, 1946, it was reaffirmed that the question of how the States' representatives should be appointed to the Constituent Assembly was not a matter for decision by the Cabinet Mission and was clearly one which must be discussed with the States.
65. In his Statement before the House of Lords on 18th July, 1946, Lord Pethick-Lawrence repeated the assurance that it was for the States freely to come in or not as they chose. In a statement made before the House of Commons on 18th July, 1946, Sir Stafford Cripps stated that there would have to be close negotiations between the Negotiating Committee which the States had set up and the major British Indian parties, both as to the representation of the States in the Constituent Assembly and as to their ultimate position in the Union.
66. The Standing Committee of the Chamber of Princes in its statement, dated 10th June, 1946, expressed the view that the Plan provided a fair basis for negotiation and subsequently set up a representative committee to negotiate the States' entry into the Constituent Assembly.
67. By a resolution passed on 21st December, 1946, the Constituent Assembly appointed a Committee to confer with the Negotiating Committee set up by the Chamber of Princes for the purpose of
(a) fixing the distribution of the seats in the Assembly not exceeding 93 in number which in the Cabinet Mission's Statement of 16th May, 1946, were reserved for Indian States; and
(b) fixing the method by which the representatives of the States should be returned to the Assembly.
The settlement arrived at between the two Committees is embodied in the report, dated 17th April, 1947, of the Committee appointed by the Constituent Assembly.
68. During the course of the negotiations between the two Committees, it was suggested that the British Government's Statement of 20th February, 1947, had introduced an additional element of urgency and that it would be helpful if the States' representatives joined the Assembly during the April, 1947, session. Although the States' Negotiating Committee expressed its inability to adopt such a course in the absence of a mandate
