Consider the following statements:
- 1.In the election for Lok Sabha or State Assembly, the winning candidate must get at least 50 percent of the votes polled, to be declared elected.
- 2.According to the provisions laid down in the Constitution of India, in Lok Sabha, the Speaker’s post goes to the majority party and the Deputy Speaker’s to the Opposition.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Neither statement is correct. Lok Sabha and Assembly seats are won by plurality, the most votes, and not by a 50 per cent majority. The Constitution only says the House elects its Speaker and Deputy Speaker from among its members; it does not reserve either post for a party.
- ✗ 1. India uses the First Past the Post system: the candidate with more votes than every other candidate wins, and need not secure a majority of the votes polled.
- ✗ 2. Article 93 says the House of the People chooses two of its members as Speaker and Deputy Speaker. It says nothing about the majority party or the Opposition; any such sharing is only a convention, not a constitutional provision.
Remember · Lok Sabha seats are won by plurality (First Past the Post), not a 50 per cent majority. Article 93: the House elects its own Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 11 Indian Constitution at Work, Ch 3 (practise this chapter)
Sources
- NCERT Class 11 · Indian Constitution at Work, Chapter 3 “The winning candidate need not secure a majority of the votes. This method is called the First Past the Post (FPTP) system.”
- Constitution of India, Article 93 (Legislative Department, Government of India) ↗ “The House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker thereof”
Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). ·