Read the passage and answer the questions:
The Making of the Constitution
One of the topics most vigorously debated in the Constituent Assembly was the respective rights of the Central Government and the states. Among those arguing for a strong Centre was Jawaharlal Nehru. As he put it in a letter to the President of the Constituent Assembly, “Now that partition is a settled fact, … it would be injurious to the interests of the country to provide for a weak central authority which would be incapable of ensuring peace, of coordinating vital matters of common concern and of speaking effectively for the whole country in the international sphere”. The Draft Constitution provided for three lists of subjects: Union, State, and Concurrent. The subjects in the first list were to be the preserve of the Central Government, while those in the second list were vested with the states. As for the third list, here the Centre and state shared responsibility. However, many more items were placed under exclusive Union control than in other federations, and more were placed on the Concurrent list too than desired by the provinces. The Union also had control of minerals and key industries. Besides, Article 356 gave the Centre the power to take over state administration on the recommendation of the Governor. The Constitution also mandated a complex system of fiscal federalism. In the case of some taxes (for instance, customs duties and Company taxes) the Centre retained all the proceeds; in other cases (such as income tax and excise duties) it shared them with the states; in still other cases (for instance, estate duties) it assigned them wholly to the states. The states, meanwhile, could levy and collect certain taxes on their own: these included land and property taxes, sales tax, and the hugely profitable tax on bottled liquor.
Who was the President of the Constituent Assembly?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Rajendra Prasad
Rajendra Prasad was the President of the Constituent Assembly. His task was to steer the discussion along constructive lines while making sure that all members had a chance to speak. With Nehru and Patel, he was one of the three Congress members who played particularly important roles in the Assembly.
Note: A same/similar question was asked in CUET (UG) in the papers below.
| 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
| 13-05 S1* 21-05 S1 | 30-05 S1 | – | 02-06 S3* 06-06 S3* 09-06 S1* | – |
* A similar question.
NCERT (2025-26): “1.2 The dominant voices … The Constituent Assembly had 300 members. Of these, six members played particularly important roles. Three were representatives of the Congress, namely, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabh Bhai Patel and Rajendra Prasad. It was Nehru who moved the crucial ‘Objectives Resolution’, as well as the resolution proposing that the National Flag of India be a ‘horizontal tricolour of saffron, white and dark green in equal proportion’, with a wheel in navy blue at the centre. Patel, on the other hand, worked mostly behind the scenes, playing a key role in the drafting of several reports, and working to reconcile opposing points of view. Rajendra Prasad’s role was as President of the Assembly, where he had to steer the discussion along constructive lines while making sure all members had a chance to speak. Besides this Congress trio, a very important member of the Assembly was the lawyer and economist B.R. Ambedkar. During the period of British rule, Ambedkar had been a political opponent of the Congress; but, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, he was asked at Independence to join the Union Cabinet as law minister. In this capacity, he served as Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution. Serving with him were two other lawyers, K.M. Munshi from Gujarat and Alladi Krishnaswamy Aiyar from Madras, both of whom gave crucial inputs in the drafting of the Constitution. These six members were given vital assistance by two civil servants. One was B. N. Rau, Constitutional Advisor to the Government of India, who prepared a series of background papers based on a close study of the political systems obtaining in other countries. The other was the Chief Draughtsman, S. N. Mukherjee, who had the ability to put complex proposals in clear legal language. Ambedkar himself had the responsibility of guiding the Draft Constitution through the Assembly.…” |