[5][4][6] On 19 September 1945, following negotiations between Indian leaders and members of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India from the United Kingdom, the Viceroy Lord Wavell announced that elections to the provincial and central legislatures would be held in December 1945 to January 1946.

[5][9][10] Originally, the Muslim League had been a party which received most of its support from the Muslim-minority provinces, where manufactured fear of Hindu ‘domination’ was greater, as was a sort of a sense of ‘loss of privilege’, and to showcase its argument for Muslim nationhood the League needed support from both Muslim-majority as well as Muslim-minority provinces.

In the election campaign, the League resorted to establishing networks with traditional power bases, such as landowners and the religious elite, in the Muslim-majority provinces to win support.

[25] Amongst the communist candidates elected were Jyoti Basu (railways constituency in Bengal), Ratanlal Brahmin (Darjeeling) and Rupnarayan Ray (Dinajpur).

Congress achieved a strong majority, largely due to the personality of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, enabling them to form a government without trouble.

[20] Khizr Hayat Khan of Unionist Party managed to form a coalition government with the Congress and Akalis.

In Assam, Congress won all of the general seats and most of those were reserved for special interest, thus forming the local government.

Congress then lobbied three European members, who would swing the balance of power into their favour, but their overtures were rejected.

In Punjab also religious appeal was the factor in the battle between the league and the Muslim members of the Unionist party who were not interested in Pakistan.

[33] A well-documented account of how the Coalition Government − under popular Punjabi Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh leaders such as Khizar Hayat Tiwana, Chhotu Ram, and Tara Singh − led by the secular Unionist Party in Punjab Province collapsed as a result of a massive campaign launched by the then Punjab Muslim League has been given by Sharma, Madhulika.

By early 1947, the law and order situation in the province came to such a point where civil life was utterly paralyzed.

It was under such circumstances that the Premier of Punjab (Chief Minister), Khizar Hayat Tiwana of the coalition-led Unionist Party was forced to resign, on 2 March 1947.

Akali-Dall Sikhs, with 22 seats, were major stakeholders in the coalition along with Congress(51) and the Unionist Party (20), who were infuriated over the dissolution of the Khizer Government.

It was in this backdrop that on 3 March 1947, Akali Sikh leader Master Tara Singh brandished his kirpan outside Punjab Assembly saying openly 'down with Pakistan and blood be to the one who demands it'.

In the process, a huge number of people were massacred, millions were forced to cross over and become refugees while thousands of women were abducted, raped and killed, across all religious communities in Punjab.