Indian States & UTs Previous Year Questions (PYQ) with Answers

The correct answer is A, Ayodhya. The city stands on the Sarayu in eastern Uttar Pradesh and is one of the oldest towns named in Indian literature. The Sarayu is fed by waters coming down from the Himalaya through the Ghaghara system and joins the Ganga further east, and the ghats of Ayodhya lie along it.

Option C, Kanpur, is also in Uttar Pradesh but stands on the Ganga, which makes it the closest wrong answer in the list. Option D, Haridwar, is in Uttarakhand and is the town where the Ganga leaves the hills for the plain. Option B, Bhopal, is the capital of Madhya Pradesh and is known for its lakes rather than for a river. The pairs worth holding are Varanasi and Prayagraj on the Ganga, Agra and Mathura on the Yamuna, Lucknow on the Gomti and Ayodhya on the Sarayu.

The correct answer is C, Sardar Hukam Singh. The Parliamentary Committee headed by Sardar Hukam Singh, then Speaker of the Lok Sabha, examined the demand for a Punjabi-speaking state and recommended the division of Punjab. The Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 followed, and on 1 November 1966 Haryana became a separate state while the hill districts went to Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh was made a Union Territory serving as the shared capital.

Option A, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was Prime Minister until January 1966 and did not head such a committee. Option B, Indira Gandhi, was Prime Minister when the Act was passed but again headed no committee on the question. Option D, Sir Chhotu Ram, was a peasant leader of the region who died in 1945, long before the reorganisation. A related name worth keeping is the Shah Commission, which drew the actual boundaries after the committee reported.

The correct answer is D, Akbar. He built Fatehpur Sikri in the Agra district of present day Uttar Pradesh in the sixteenth century and made it his capital, naming it after his victory in Gujarat. The city holds the Buland Darwaza, the Jama Masjid, the Panch Mahal and the tomb of Salim Chishti, and it was abandoned after a few years, which is why it survives so completely. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Option A, Babur, founded the dynasty after the first battle of Panipat in 1526 and ruled from Agra, not from Sikri. Option B, Humayun, lost the empire to Sher Shah Suri and regained it shortly before his death, and built nothing of this kind. Option C, Jahangir, was Akbar's son and was born at Sikri, which is the reason the place is often wrongly credited to him; he ruled from Agra and Lahore.

The correct answer is D, 1953. Andhra State came into being on 1 October 1953 from the Telugu-speaking districts of the Madras province. The immediate cause was the death of Potti Sriramulu on 15 December 1952 after a fast unto death for a Telugu state, and the agitation that followed forced the Government's hand.

Option C, 1956, is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, when Andhra State was enlarged with the Telugu areas of Hyderabad and renamed Andhra Pradesh, so it marks a later step and is the commonest wrong choice. Option A, 1950, is the year the Constitution came into force, when the map still carried the Part A to Part D classification. Option B, 1947, is independence, five years before the agitation began. The order to remember is 1952 death, 1953 Andhra State, 1956 Andhra Pradesh.

The correct answer is D, Andhra Pradesh. The Telugu-speaking Andhra State was carved out of the Madras province on 1 October 1953, the first time independent India accepted language as the ground for a new state, and in 1956 it was enlarged and renamed Andhra Pradesh. Every later linguistic state followed this precedent.

Option A, Karnataka, was formed in 1956 as Mysore State by bringing Kannada-speaking areas together and was renamed Karnataka only in 1973, so it came later. Option B, West Bengal, existed from 1947 as a product of the partition of Bengal rather than of a linguistic reorganisation. Option C, Punjab, was reorganised on a linguistic basis much later, in 1966, when Haryana was separated and hill areas went to Himachal Pradesh. Learn 1953 as the single date for the first linguistic state.