Voting: –Sri Aurobindo
Bande Mataram
Political Writings and Speeches. 1890–1908
Appendixes
Nationalist Party Documents [1]1
Suggested Rules of Business for the Congress
1. Each of the six Provinces, namely, Bengal, Bombay, Madras, United Provinces, The Punjab and the Central Provinces shall return Members to the Subjects Committee as follows: –
2. No subject shall be brought up for discussion at the Congress unless it should have been previously discussed in the Subjects Committee.
3. For the purpose of voting on any proposition that is brought before the Congress, the delegates of each Province shall elect 170 Representatives distributed among the six Provinces as follows: –
The method of election shall be the same as in the case of the Members of the Subjects Committee.
4. None but such Representatives shall be entitled to vote on any proposition that may come up before the Congress.
5. Any proposition for which the majority of the Representatives vote shall be deemed to be carried by the Congress, provided that if the Representatives of any two Provinces unanimously vote against any proposition, the same shall be dropped.
6. Election of Subjects Committee and Representatives. For the purpose of electing Members of the Subjects Committee and Representatives, each Province shall be sub-divided into Electoral Divisions each to return a fixed number of Electors. For the present the Delegates from each District of a Province attending shall meet and elect one person from among themselves to act as the Elector of that District and the capital City of each Province may be allowed to elect 5 Electors from among the Delegates representing that City.
7. The Electors of each Province shall meet separately before the session of the Congress opens and elect the Members of the Subjects Committee and the Representatives from among themselves by a majority of votes.
The Voting shall be by ballot 
and each Elector shall put down in writing the names of the Members not exceeding the appointed number whom he may desire to be the Members of the Subjects Committee and Representatives for his Province.
For this purpose each Elector shall receive a printed form to be supplied by the Secretaries.
8. The Reception Committee of the Province where the Congress is being held shall have the right by majority of Votes to nominate the President of the Congress for that year and such nomination shall be accepted by the Congress unless negatived by a three-fourths majority of the Representatives.
9. The President shall preside over the Session of the Congress and control the conduct of business.
10. Every Representative shall have the right to bring forward any proposition for discussion before the Congress or to move any amendment to any proposition under discussion, provided in the first case he should have given 12 hours’ previous notice in writing to the General Secretaries to enable them to bring it up before the Subjects Committee for discussion and provided in the second case he should have given an hour’s previous notice in writing to the President.
11. On each contested proposition the votes of the Representatives shall be counted by the President appointing if necessary Tellers one from each side and either by the Representatives dividing or the President calling out each Representative by name and recording his vote.
12. The Members of the Subjects Committee shall meet once every day and oftener if necessary and frame the Resolutions to be brought up before the Congress on that or the following day and the Secretaries shall place a printed copy of such Resolutions in the hands of each Representative at least two hours before the time fixed for the Meeting of the Congress that day.
13. The Subjects Committee shall select from among the general body of Delegates the speakers on each Resolution.
In the case of amendments the Representative moving the amendment shall have the right to select his seconder and after an amendment has been seconded the mover of the original proposition shall have the right of reply or he may select any other person to reply on his behalf.
14. Where possible, the Representatives shall have a conspicuous portion of the Pandal reserved for them to facilitate voting and counting of votes.
This work was not included in SABCL, vol.1 and it was not compared with other editions.
1 1907 – 8. This typewritten document contains one or two small corrections in ink that seem to be in Sri Aurobindo’s handwriting. This, and the fact that it was found in Sri Aurobindo’s room, makes it likely that it was his work. He was among those who believed that the Congress ought to have a written constitution and rules of procedure. The present document is an attempt, from the Nationalist side, to formulate such a set of rules.