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?

Question

YESPYQ · Accepted Answer

Correct answer: Neither 1 nor 2. Statement 1 is incorrect: The Indian constitution adopts the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system of elections where a candidate is declared elected if he/she gets a plurality of the votes, not necessarily 50 percent of the total votes polled. This means that the candidate with the highest number of votes among all contenders is declared the winner, even if they do not achieve an absolute majority. Statement 2 is incorrect: Under Article 93, Speaker and Deputy speaker are elected by the house. This is a convention (not constitutional provision) that usually the Speaker’s post goes to the majority party and the Deputy Speaker’s to the Opposition. This is an established convention to maintain a balance of power and ensure that the ruling party does not control both the key positions. SUPER HINT For Option A, just required normal observation, Have candidates ever won elections even when many others contested, and they got only 30-35% votes?” Yes, fre- quently — especially in multi-cornered contests. Hence S1 likely false. For S2, The phrase “as per the Cons

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