How the Karnataka Assembly came into being

With political parties gearing up for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections and leaders trading barbs trying to prove that their parties should be given a chance to form the government in the state, it is a ripe time to look at the history of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly and how it came to be in the shape we know it today.

The history of the Karnataka Assembly is long and varied. It began in the year 1879 when the then-Chief Commissioner of Mysore, J D Gordon, as one of the conditions for the transfer of power to the Maharaja of Mysrore, proposed the formation of a deliberative Assembly. Gordon suggested composing the deliberative Assembly with representatives from various sections of the society and interest groups, along with retired officials. However, his idea was not favoured by the Government of India.

The government was wary that an Assembly that had no real administrative, executive or financial power, and one that only recorded the opinions of its members could either tend to fall out of repute or start becoming more and more influential than the former could earlier conceive.

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According to the National Information Centre, the Viceroy of India, in a letter to the Secretary of State, had observed that introduction of such an institution might be premature in British India.

Despite such an opinion of the government, the Maharaja issued an order for the formation of an Assembly on August 25, 1881, and the body met for the first time on October 7, 1881. This was the first time in the history of India that a government decided that it was its duty to inform the people of the state about its functioning.

This Assembly continued functioning till 1923 when it was given a statutory status by the Maharaja. During this time, the term of the Assembly was fixed to three years by the Regulation of 1923.

In 1940 came the Government of Mysore Act, which gave a number of privileges to the members of the Legislative Council (formed in 1907) and the Assembly. These provisions were in line with the Government of India Act, which was passed in 1935.

Post-Independence, the Maharaja of Mysore issued a proclamation on October 29, 1947, wherein he decided to set up a Constituent Assembly in order to frame a Constitution for the Mysore State. However, a majority of the Constituent Assembly members decided that the state should be governed by the Constitution being framed by the Constituent Assembly of India.

Thus, in 1949, through a proclamation by the Maharaja, both the Representative Assembly and the Legislative Council were dissolved.

Thus, the Constituent Assembly formed by the Maharaja became the state's provisional Assembly until elections were held in 1952, and 99 members were elected to the state's Assembly along with one nominated member

Later, through the re-adjustment of state boundaries, five more seats were added to the Assembly.

After further readjustments, a New State of Mysore was formed in November 1956. During this time, four districts from what was then known as the Bombay State, four from the Hyderabad State, a taluk and a district from the Old Madras State, Coorg, along with the princely State of Mysore formed the Mysore state. In 1973, the state was renamed to Karnataka.

The Mysore State's first Chief Minister was K C Reddy, who took office in 1947 and served in the position till 1952.

The first Chief Minister of the official state of Karnataka was Devaraj Devaraj Urs, who served two terms in office (March 20, 1972 to December 31, 1977; February 28, 1978 to January 7, 1980).

The current Karnataka Legislative Assembly, which is the Fifteenth Assembly, was formed on May 16, 2018 after B S Yediyurappa became the Chief Minister. The post then went to the JD (S) leader H D Kumaraswamy, then to Yediyurappa again, and finally to Basavaraj Bommai in the aftermath of the 2019 political crisis in the state.