Read the passage and answer the questions:
Constitution: Powers of the State
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 Centre and state shared responsibility. However, many more items were placed under exclusive Union control than in other federations, and more 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 powers to take over a state administration on the recommendation of the Governor. The Constitution also mandated for 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.
The rights of the states were defended by __________ from Madras.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → K. Santhanam
In the Constituent Assembly the rights of the states were most eloquently defended by K. Santhanam from Madras. He argued that a reallocation of powers would strengthen not only the states but also the Centre: a Centre overburdened with responsibilities could not work well, and by passing some of its functions to the states it could in fact be made stronger.
Note: A same/similar question was asked in CUET (UG) in the papers below.
| 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
| 13-05 S2 25-05 S1* | – | – | – | – |
* A similar question.
NCERT (2025-26): “4.1 ‘The centre is likely to break’ … The rights of the states were most eloquently defended by K. Santhanam from Madras. A reallocation of powers was necessary, he felt, to strengthen not only the states but also the Centre. ‘There is almost an obsession that by adding all kinds of powers to the Centre we can make it strong.’ This was a misconception, said Santhanam. If the Centre was overburdened with responsibilities, it could not function effectively. By relieving it of some of its functions, and transferring them to the states, the Centre could, in fact, be made stronger.” |