UPSC GK Questions 2026

He became Chief Minister when the reorganised state of Madhya Pradesh came into being on 1 November 1956, having already headed the government of the earlier Central Provinces and Berar, and he died in office in December 1956, only weeks into the new state.

The Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2000 created Chhattisgarh on 1 November 2000, and ninety of the 320 constituencies of the undivided Madhya Pradesh Assembly fell within the new state and became its Legislative Assembly.

Article 164(1A), inserted by the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act of 2003, says the total number of ministers including the Chief Minister in a state shall not exceed fifteen per cent of the total number of members of its Legislative Assembly, and shall not be fewer than twelve.

The Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly returns 230 members from single-member territorial constituencies, of which thirty-five are reserved for the Scheduled Castes and forty-seven for the Scheduled Tribes.

She was sworn in as Chief Minister of Bihar in 1997 and is the only woman so far to have held that office in the state; she later served several terms and also led the Opposition in the state legislature.

Undivided Bihar had a Legislative Assembly of 324 elected members. When the Bihar Reorganisation Act of 2000 carved out Jharkhand on 15 November 2000, eighty-one of those constituencies fell in the new state and became its Assembly, leaving Bihar with the 243 seats it has today.

It empowers the Governor to promulgate an ordinance when the legislature of the state, or either House where there are two, is not in session and he is satisfied that circumstances exist which make immediate action necessary.

Under Article 198 a money bill can be introduced only in the Legislative Assembly, and when the Assembly has passed it and sent it to the Legislative Council, the Council may return it with recommendations within a period of fourteen days.

Article 173 lays down the qualifications for membership of a state legislature: the person must be a citizen of India, must take the prescribed oath, and must have completed thirty years of age for a seat in the Legislative Council and twenty-five years for a seat in the Legislative Assembly.

He headed the government of Bihar from 1946, continued as Chief Minister after the Constitution came into force, and remained in office until his death in 1961, which makes his one of the longest unbroken tenures in the early history of any state.

It provides that there shall be a Council of Ministers with the Chief Minister at the head to aid and advise the Governor in the exercise of his functions, except in so far as he is required to exercise them in his discretion, and it adds that the question whether…

Article 159 says that before entering upon his office the Governor shall make and subscribe an oath before the Chief Justice of the High Court exercising jurisdiction in relation to that state, or in his absence before the senior-most judge of that court available.

The Bihar Legislative Council, the second chamber of the state legislature, has seventy-five members. Article 171 allows a Legislative Council a strength of not more than one-third of the Assembly of the state and not fewer than forty, and seventy-five sits comfortably inside that band for an Assembly of 243.

Article 164(1A), inserted by the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act of 2003, says the total number of ministers including the Chief Minister in a state shall not exceed fifteen per cent of the total number of members of the Legislative Assembly, subject to a floor of twelve.

The Bihar Legislative Assembly returns 243 members from single-member territorial constituencies by universal adult suffrage, and every calculation about the state, from the majority mark to the ceiling on the Council of Ministers, is worked out from that figure.

Article 182 says the Legislative Council of a state shall choose two members of the Council to be respectively Chairman and Deputy Chairman, and the Chairman presides over its sittings.

Uttar Pradesh is allotted 31 seats in the Rajya Sabha, more than any other state, and they are filled by the elected members of the Vidhan Sabha voting by the single transferable vote.

Article 170 provides that a Legislative Assembly shall consist of not more than 500 and not fewer than 60 members chosen by direct election from territorial constituencies, the only exceptions being the smaller states for which a lower minimum is specially provided.

Article 189(3) fixes this quorum until the House makes a rule of its own. For the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha with 403 members the quorum therefore works out to 41, and for the 100-member Vidhan Parishad it is 10.

Parliament may by law create a Legislative Council for a state that does not have one, or abolish an existing Council, but only after the Legislative Assembly of that state passes a resolution supported by a majority of its total membership and by not less than two-thirds of the members…