Lok Sabha is the lower house of the Indian Parliament. Lok Sabha means House of the People. The other house is the Rajya Sabha, or the Council of States. Both houses meet in the Parliament building in New Delhi. There are 545 members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha. Two of these are nominated by the president of India to represent the Anglo-Indian community. The other 543 are directly elected by the people, each from a separate territorial constituency. India’s first general elections were held in 1951 and 1952, and the first Lok Sabha began its term in 1952.
The Lok Sabha is elected for a term of five years, but the prime minister has the power to dissolve the Lok Sabha and call elections earlier. If there is an official state of emergency, the term can be extended for an extra year. This happened in the 1970’s, after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in 1975. The next elections were held in 1977, six years after the previous elections. Members of the Lok Sabha must be at least 25 years old.
The Lok Sabha is the more powerful of the two houses in the Parliament. The party or group of parties that holds a majority of the seats in the Lok Sabha forms a government and chooses a leader to be the prime minister. This prime minister chooses the council of ministers, and both are responsible to the Lok Sabha. Bills concerning taxation or finance can only be introduced in the Lok Sabha. The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, along with the state legislative assemblies, form the electoral college that names the president of India. The members of the Lok Sabha elect one member to be its speaker, and one member to be the deputy speaker. The speaker and deputy speaker are the Lok Sabha’s presiding officers; they control the day-to-day functioning of the Lok Sabha.
See also India, Government of (Central government).
