ABSTRACT
In 1936 Jinnah was perhaps the most experienced legislator in India. He had been elected to the Imperial Legislative Council in 1910 and later to the Central Legislative Assembly, but he had never led a political party at a general election. It was only after his visit to Lahore in February 1936 that Jinnah began to tour the country, meeting local politicians and addressing meetings. It is a curious fact that though no love was lost between Jinnah and Fazl-i-Husain, they were reluctant to betray their mutual antipathy in public. The sudden death of Fazl-i-Husain in August 1936 removed Jinnah’s most formidable Muslim opponent from the political scene. In the course of his election campaign, as Jinnah travelled and talked to local politicians, it was borne upon him that with separate electorates, the extended franchise and the enormous expansion in the size of the electorate, a strictly secular approach might not work.
