Who among the following was the first non-official member to be elected as Speaker of the Central Legislative Assembly on 24-8-1925?

Correct — A, Vithalbhai J Patel. The Central Legislative Assembly created by the Government of India Act, 1919 had been presided over since 1921 by a President nominated by the Governor-General, Sir Frederick Whyte. From 1925 the House elected its own presiding officer, and on 24 August 1925 it chose Vithalbhai Patel, a Swarajist and the elder brother of Vallabhbhai Patel by two years. He was the first elected President of the Assembly and the first Indian to hold the chair. He had entered the Assembly in 1924 as a co-founder of the Swaraj Party alongside C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru, which had gone into the legislatures to obstruct from within after Gandhi suspended non-cooperation in 1922. He resigned the chair in 1930 in support of the Civil Disobedience Movement and died in 1933.

• (b)Muhammad Yakub — He served in the Central Legislative Assembly and held the deputy presidency, later succeeding to the presidency; he was not the first elected non-official holder of the chair in 1925.
• (c)G. V. Mavalankar — Mavalankar's landmark is a different House at a different date. He was the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha under the new Constitution from 1952, after presiding over the Constituent Assembly (Legislative), and he is called the father of the Lok Sabha for that reason.
• (d)Sardar Hukum Singh — He was Speaker of the Lok Sabha in the 1960s, a full generation after the event in the stem. The option works only if the candidate reads the question as being about independent India's Parliament.

The Central Legislative Assembly was the lower chamber of the bicameral Indian legislature created by the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms and the Government of India Act, 1919; the Council of State was the upper. Its presiding officer was called the President, not the Speaker, and the office passed from Governor-General's nominee to elected member in 1925. That handover is the ancestor of today's Speakership, which is why the question describes Patel as the first non-official member elected to the chair.

The three distractors all belong to presiding chairs, and separating them is a matter of which legislature and which decade. Patel belongs to the colonial Central Legislative Assembly of 1925; Mavalankar to the first Lok Sabha of 1952; Hukam Singh to the Lok Sabha of the 1960s. As with several items in this block, the store's subject tag reads Indian Economy, which is the dataset's catch-all and is wrong here — this is a polity and modern history item.

• Vithalbhai J. Patel (1873-1933) was elected President of the Central Legislative Assembly on 24 August 1925.
• He was the first elected holder of that chair and the first Indian in it, succeeding the nominated Sir Frederick Whyte.
• He co-founded the Swaraj Party in 1923 with C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru, and was Vallabhbhai Patel's elder brother.
• He resigned the presidency in 1930 in support of the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• G. V. Mavalankar became the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha in 1952 and is called the father of the Lok Sabha.

• Reading the question as being about the Lok Sabha and answering Mavalankar.
• Confusing the Central Legislative Assembly with the Constituent Assembly.
• Forgetting that the chair was called President, not Speaker, before 1950.

Asked as a first-holder recall with a date printed in the stem; the distractors are all real presiding officers of a later House, so the date is what decides it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who was the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha after the Constitution came into force?

  • (a)Vithalbhai Patel
  • (b)G. V. Mavalankar
  • (c)M. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar
  • (d)Sardar Hukam Singh

  Answer(b) G. V. Mavalankar — Speaker from 1952 and known as the father of the Lok Sabha.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Swaraj Party, which contested elections to the legislatures after 1922, was founded by

  • (a)Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal
  • (b)C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru
  • (c)Lala Lajpat Rai and Madan Mohan Malaviya
  • (d)Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru

  Answer(b) C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru — with Vithalbhai Patel among its leading figures.