Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A replica of the original copy of Constitution is the most prized possession of the library of Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha.   The copy was gifted to House in 1958 two years after Madhya Pradesh came into being on November 1, 1956. It carries a seal, saying that it is Book No 689 in the library and was received on November 13, 1958. At least 30 political and legal luminaries and leaders from different walks of life from what is today Madhya Pradesh had played a role in the drafting the Constitution for nascent Republic of India. Two of them became chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh.

In fact, Dr BR Ambedkar, the chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, also had a Madhya Pradesh connect. He was born in Mhow, a military cantonment near Indore in the state, though he spent much part of his life in neighbouring Maharashtra.   The illustrations were made by Nand Lal Bose, an artist from Shantiniketan. Bose’s closest associate in the team was Beohar Ram Manohar Singha who hailed from Jabalpur. However, no place from Madhya Pradesh figured in the illustrations including Eran and the Sanchi Stupas.

Know the members

The members of Constituent Assembly from Madhya Pradesh including the Central Provinces and Berar and princely states were: Raghu Vira, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Bhagwantrao Annabhau Mandloi, Brijlal Nandlal Biyani, Thakur Chhedi Lal, Seth Govind Das, Dr Hari Singh Gour, Hari Vishnu Kamath, Hemchandra Jagobaji Khandekar, Ghanshyam Singh Gupta, Laxman Shrawan Bhatkar, Panjabrao Shamrao Deshmukh, Ravi Shankar Shukla, RK Sidhva, Shankar Tryambak Dharmadhikari, Frank Anthony, Kazi Syed Karimuddin, Vinayak Sitaram Sarwate, Gopi Krishna Vijayvargiya, Kusum Kant Jain, Radhavallabh Vijayvargiya, Sitaram S Jaju, Avdhesh Pratap Singh, Shambunath Shukla, Ram Sahai Tiwari, Mannulal Dwivedi, Bhaiyalal Singh and Lal Singh.