All 16 Elections & Parties questions the Punjab PSC asked between 2015 and 2025, each with a worked answer and the exam it came from. First 10 free to read.
1 of these 16 were set in more than one exam — the Commission reuses this topic, which is the argument for working through it rather than skimming it.
Free to read, with the worked answer and the exam each one came from. The book prints this topic in the order the Commission favours, so these are the ones to know first.
Which of the above statements is/are correct ?
Which of the statements given above are incorrect?
The Dinesh Goswami Committee (1990) was set up to suggest electoral reforms; it recommended a ban on booth capturing, state funding of elections and voter ID cards. The Chakma problem and north-east insurgency were handled by other bodies.
VVPAT stands for Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail, so statement 1 is wrong. After a vote is cast, a printed slip showing the candidate's serial number, name and symbol stays visible behind a glass window for seven seconds before dropping into a sealed box, and VVPATs were first used in the Noksen assembly bye-election in Nagaland in September 2013. So statements 2 and 3 are correct.
All three statements are incorrect. Star campaigners are provided for under Section 77(1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, not 1950. A recognised party may name up to 40 leaders and an unrecognised party up to 20. The travel expenses of these leaders for propagating the party's programme are excluded from a candidate's election expenditure. So statement 2 is wrong. The Election Commission registers parties under Section 29A but has no express power to deregister them. The Supreme Court held so in Indian National Congress v. Institute of Social Welfare (2002). Section 12 does not confer such power.
The Vohra Committee, headed by Home Secretary N.N. Vohra and set up in July 1993, examined the criminalisation of politics and the nexus among criminals, politicians and bureaucrats. Its 1993 report, which spoke of a 'parallel government' run by crime syndicates with political patronage, is regularly cited in electoral-reform debates.
Under paragraph 6B of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968, a party becomes a national party if it (i) is recognised as a state party in at least four states, or (ii) polls at least 6% of valid votes in four or more states in a Lok Sabha or Assembly election and also wins four Lok Sabha seats, or (iii) wins at least 2% of Lok Sabha seats (11 seats) from at least three states. Only Party Arsenal qualifies, as a state party in four states. 5% votes in three states, 1% of seats and mere existence since 1947 meet no criterion.
The right to vote and the right to contest elections are legal (statutory) rights in the standard classification. They come from Article 326 read with the Representation of the People Acts of 1950 and 1951. The Supreme Court has held this again and again. It is a statutory right, not a fundamental right — see Kuldip Nayar v. Union of India, 2006. So they are neither fundamental rights nor listed constitutional rights like the right to property (Article 300A).
Under Section 158 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 a defeated candidate forfeits the security deposit if he or she fails to secure more than one-sixth (16 2/3%) of the total valid votes polled in the constituency. The deposit is ₹25,000 for a Lok Sabha seat and ₹10,000 for an Assembly seat, halved for SC/ST candidates. NOTA votes, invalid votes and merely finishing last have no bearing on forfeiture.
An Indian EVM consists of a Ballot Unit and a Control Unit. The VVPAT is a separate printer attached to the Ballot Unit; it shows a slip of the vote for seven seconds and is an add-on, not a built-in function of the EVM. So statement 2 is correct and statement 1 is wrong. Since the 2019 Lok Sabha election VVPATs have been used at every polling station, but still as a separate unit.
The Lyngdoh Committee was headed by former Chief Election Commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh. The Ministry of HRD set it up in 2005 on the direction of the Supreme Court. In 2006 it recommended reforms in students' union elections, such as age and attendance limits and a cap on election spending. T.N. Seshan is known for electoral reforms in the 1990s. V.S. Sampath and Nasim Zaidi were later CECs.
NOTA stands for None of the Above. It was introduced on the EVM ballot following the Supreme Court judgment in PUCL v. Union of India (September 2013), giving voters the option to reject all candidates while keeping their vote secret. NOTA votes are counted but have no effect on the result: the candidate with the most valid votes still wins.
You have read the ten the Commission asks most. The rest of this topic — and all 4,239 questions across the book, each with a worked solution — come with either edition.
The whole book online, on any device. Read it or attempt it question by question. Nothing to download, nothing to wait for.
Access does not expire, and includes every test released later in whichever series you buy.
You sign in with your phone number as part of checkout — that is what your copy is tied to.
536 pages, delivered. Five full papers and five OMR sheets at the back. Online access is included free, from the moment you pay.
See the printed book →The Commission set 16 Elections & Parties questions across 13 papers between 2015–2025. That is the whole set, not a sample — every one of them is in the book, and the 10 most-asked are on this page free.
Yes. 1 of these 16 were set in more than one exam, which is why they are worth working rather than reading. Each question here carries a badge showing how many sittings asked it.
Here. Every question on this page is a solved MCQ: the four options as printed, the correct answer, and a worked explanation in plain English — not just a letter. The rest of the 16 are in the book, in the same form.
Switch to Attempt mode at the top of the questions. You get one question at a time and it is marked the moment you pick an option, with the reason underneath — the same way the exam feels, on your phone.
The questions are on screen rather than in a downloadable file, so they stay current and correct. The printed book has all 16 of these plus the rest of the General Knowledge section, and every buyer gets the whole thing online as well.
The exams behind these questions, most first. A paper here is a sitting: a question set in two papers of the same sitting counts once.
| Exam | Year | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| Punjab Civil Services (Executive Branch) of Register C for Recruitment Process Y | 2024 | 2 |
| Assistant Mechanical Engineer | 2018 | 2 |
| Punjab Civil Services(Executive Branch) of Register C From Amongst t | 2017 | 2 |
| Punjab Civil Services (Executive Branch) to Be Filled From Registe | 2017 | 2 |
| Traffice Manager | 2016 | 2 |
| Punjab Civil Services (Prelims) — General Studies | 2025 | 1 |
| District Manager (Group-B) in Punjab State Warehousing Corporation Under the Dep | 2024 | 1 |
| Assistant Town Planner (Group A) | 2023 | 1 |
| Analysts | 2022 | 1 |
| Junior Engineers (Civil) | 2022 | 1 |
| Punjab State Civil Services Combined Competitive Examination-2018 Mains Examinat | 2018 | 1 |
| District Programme Officer | 2017 | 1 |