The assembly's lifespan covered the anti-feudal movement of the Krishak Praja Party, the period of World War II, the Lahore Resolution, the Quit India movement, suggestions for a United Bengal and the partition of Bengal and partition of British India.

The act did not grant universal suffrage, instead in line with the Communal Award, it created separate electorates as the basis of electing the assembly.

The Krishak Praja Party and Bengal Provincial Muslim League, supported by several independent legislators, formed the first government.

Huq supported the League's Lahore Resolution in 1940, which called on the imperial government to include the eastern zone of British India in a future sovereign homeland for Muslims.

The text of the resolution initially seemed to support the notion of an independent state in Bengal and Assam.

Prime Minister Huq used both legal and administrative measures to relieve the debts of peasants and farmers.

[1] According to the historian Ayesha Jalal, the Bengali Muslim population was keen for a Bengali-Assamese sovereign state and an end to the permanent settlement.

[4] In Bengal, Huq secured the support of Syama Prasad Mukherjee, the leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, and formed a second coalition government.

Amid the outbreak of world war, Rabindranath Tagore urged Prime Minister Nazimuddin to arrange for the release of Alex Aronson, a German citizen and Jewish lecturer in Santiniketan who was interned by the British colonial authority.

[10] The Noakhali riots and the violence of Direct Action Day contributed to the government's stand on partitioning Bengal.

Despite support from Bengali Hindu leaders like Sarat Chandra Bose and the Governor of Bengal, Suhrawardy's proposals were not heeded by Earl Mountbatten and Nehru.

At the preliminary joint meeting, it was decided by 126 votes to 90 that the province, if it remained united, should join the "new Constituent Assembly" (Pakistan).

It was known as the Shyama-Huq coalition, named due to the inclusion of the Hindu Mahasabha member Shyamaprasad Mukherjee, who was the Finance Minister.