Member of Legislative Assembly - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A Member of Legislative Assembly, or MLA, is a representative elected by the voters of an electoral district to the Legislature

Legislature

A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...

of a State in the India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n system of government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

. Each state has between four and nine MLAs for every Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

(MP) that it has in the Lok Sabha

Lok Sabha

The Lok Sabha or House of the People is the lower house of the Parliament of India. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by direct election under universal adult suffrage. As of 2009, there have been fifteen Lok Sabhas elected by the people of India...

.
A Member of Legislative Council, or MLC, is a representative indirectly elected through an electoral college to the Legislature of a State having a bicameral legislature.

State legislature

The state legislature in Indian States is either bicameral or unicameral type. In most cases, states legislature is unicameral. In unicameral state legislature the (only) house is called Legislative Assembly.

In states where there are two houses there is a Legislative Council

Legislative Council

A Legislative Council is the name given to the legislatures, or one of the chambers of the legislature of many nations and colonies.A Member of the Legislative Council is commonly referred to as an MLC.- Unicameral legislatures :...

along with Legislative Assembly

Legislative Assembly

Legislative Assembly is the name given in some countries to either a legislature, or to one of its branch.The name is used by a number of member-states of the Commonwealth of Nations, as well as a number of Latin American countries....

. In such a case, the Legislative Council is the Upper House, while Legislative Assembly is the Lower House of the State Legislature.

Governor is an integral part of the State Legislature.

The Legislative Assembly consists of not more than 500 members and not less than 60. The biggest state like Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...

has 425 members in its Assembly. States which have small population and are small in size have a provision for having even lesser number of members in the Legislative Assembly. Pondicherry, Mizoram

Mizoram

Mizoram is one of the Seven Sister States in North Eastern India, sharing borders with the states of Tripura, Assam, Manipur and with the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Burma. Mizoram became the 23rd state of India on 20 February 1987. Its capital is Aizawl. Mizoram is located in the...

, Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh is a state of India, located in the far northeast. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south, and shares international borders with Burma in the east, Bhutan in the west, and the People's Republic of China in the north. The majority of the territory is claimed by...

have only 30 members each. Sikkim

Sikkim

Sikkim is a landlocked Indian state nestled in the Himalayan mountains...

has 32 members. All members of the Legislative Assembly are elected on the basis of adult franchise, and one member is elected from one constituency. Just as the President has the power to nominate 2 Anglo Indians to the Lok Sabha

Lok Sabha

, similarly, the Governor also has the power to nominate a certain number of members from the Anglo Indian community as he deems fit, if he is of the opinion that they are not adequately represented in the Assembly.

The Legislative Council consists of not more than 1/3 of the total strength of the Legislative Assembly of the state and not less than 40. The members of bhogala Council are elected as well as nominated. Broadly speaking, 5/6th of the total members of the Council are indirectly elected and 1/6 are nominated by the Governor. The composition is as follows:

i) 1/3 of the total members of the Council are elected by electorates consisting of members of local bodies such as corporation

Corporation

A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...

s, municipalities and zilla parishads.

ii) 1/3 are elected by members of Legislative Assembly

Legislative Assembly

from among the persons who are not members of the Assembly.

iii) 1/12 are elected by electorates consisting of persons who are graduates of three years standing, residing in that state.

iv) 1/12 are elected by electorates consisting of persons engaged for at least three years in teaching in educational institutions within the state, not lower in standard than secondary school

School

A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...

s.

v) The remainder 1/6 are nominated by the Governor from persons having knowledge or practical experience in fields such as literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

, science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, arts

ARts

aRts, which stands for analog Real time synthesizer, is an audio framework that is no longer under development. It is best known for previously being used in KDE to simulate an analog synthesizer....

, co-operative movement and social service.

Qualification

The qualifications to be a member of the state Legislature are largely similar to the qualifications to be the members of Parliament. A person can become a member of the Legislative Assembly of the state if he or she is
i) a citizen of India ii) not less than 25 years of age to be member of the Legislative Assembly and not less than 35 as per Article 173 of Indian Constitution to be a member of the Legislative Council.

No person can become a member of the Legislative Assembly or the Legislative Council of any state, unless he himself is a voter from any constituency of the state. Those who cannot become members of Parliament can also not become members of state Legislature.

Term

The term of the Legislative Assembly is five years. But it may be dissolved even earlier than five years by the Governor on the request of Chief Minister. The term of the Legislative Assembly may be extended during an Emergency, but not more than six months at a time.

The Legislative Council is the Upper House in the State. Just like the Rajya Sabha it is a permanent House and cannot be dissolved. The term of each member is 6 years and 1/3 members of the House retire after every two years.

Presiding officers

Similar to the Presiding officers of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council also have Presiding Officers. The Legislative Assembly has a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker. They are elected from among the members of the House.

The Legislative Council has a Chairman and a Deputy Chairman who are elected in a similar fashion. The functions performed by these presiding officers are similar to the function of presiding officers of the two Houses of Parliament. The Speaker of the Assembly can decide whether a bill is a money bill or not. Presiding Officers of both the Houses have the right to exercise casting vote in case of tie.

Powers

The most important function of the Legislature is law making. The State Legislature has the power to make laws on all items on which Parliament cannot legislate. Some of these items are police, prisons, irrigation, agriculture, local governments, public health, pilgrimages, burial grounds etc. Some items on which both Parliament and states can make laws are education, marriage and divorce, forests, protection of wild animals and birds etc.

As regards Money Bill, the position is the same. Bills can originate only in the Legislative Assembly. The Legislative Council can either pass the bill within 14 days from the date of the receipt of the Bill or suggest changes in it within 14 days. But these changes may or may not be accepted by the Assembly.

The State Legislature besides making laws also has one electoral power in electing the President of India. Elected members of the Legislative Assembly along with the elected members of Parliament are involved in this process.

We have seen that some parts of the Constitution can be amended by Parliament with the approval of half of State Legislatures. Thus the State legislatures take part in the process of amendment of our Constitution.

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