MPSC 2024 Prelims Paper-I · Question 88 of 100

Correct — option (1), 'Statements (b), (c) are correct.' The three chambers and courtyards of the new Parliament building were themed on India's national symbols, and the trick of the question is that it offers the wrong symbol for one chamber and the wrong object for the Speaker's chair. Statement (b) is correct: the Rajya Sabha chamber is built on the theme of the lotus, India's national flower, and is finished in red. Statement (c) is correct: the building was inaugurated on 28 May 2023. Statement (a) is not correct: the Lok Sabha chamber is themed on the PEACOCK, India's national bird, and is finished in blue-green — not on the lion. The lion does appear on the building, since the national emblem, the lion capital of Ashoka, was cast in bronze and installed on the roof, and that is precisely why the substitution in statement (a) reads plausibly. The third theme, for the open courtyard, is the banyan, India's national tree. Statement (d) is not correct either: the object installed beside the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha is the SENGOL, the historic sceptre from Tamil Nadu associated with the transfer of power in August 1947, not the Ashoka Chakra. So exactly two of the four statements survive, (b) and (c), and only option (1) names that pair. One further pair of facts is worth carrying with this question. The old Parliament House, the circular building designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker and opened in 1927, was not demolished when the new building came into use; it was renamed Samvidhan Sadan in September 2023 and retained. And the capacities of the two new chambers — 888 seats in the Lok Sabha and 384 in the Rajya Sabha, with room for about 1,272 in the Lok Sabha chamber at a joint sitting — were fixed with a future enlargement of the House in view, which is why they exceed the present strength of either House by a wide margin.

• (2)Statements (a), (b), (c) are correct. — This option is right about the Rajya Sabha and about the inauguration date but wrong about the Lok Sabha. The chamber's design theme is the peacock, the national bird, not the national animal. The confusion is deliberately engineered: the national emblem on the roof of the building is the lion capital of Ashoka, and the Bengal tiger, not the lion, is India's national animal — so a candidate who reaches for 'the lion is on the building somewhere' can be led into accepting the statement without noticing that it names the wrong symbol for the wrong chamber.
• (3)Statements (b), (c), (d) are correct. — This option keeps the two true statements and adds the wrong object at the Speaker's chair. What stands there is the Sengol, a five-foot sceptre made in Madras in 1947 and presented at the transfer of power, which was carried into the new building on the day of the inauguration and installed to the right of the Speaker's chair; it had until then been held in a museum in Allahabad. The Ashoka Chakra is the twenty-four-spoked wheel of the national flag and is also the name of India's highest peacetime gallantry decoration — neither of which is the object in question. This is the most attractive of the wrong options because it gets three-quarters of the item right.
• (4)(a), (b), (c), (d) are correct. — This is the sweep-everything option and it fails on both of the false statements at once — the lion theme for the Lok Sabha and the Ashoka Chakra beside the Speaker's chair. An 'all of them' option is a genuine possibility in this format and cannot be discounted on principle, but it can only be taken after every individual statement has been positively confirmed. Here two of them cannot be, so the option collapses. Note also that this option is printed without the word 'Statements' that the other three carry, exactly as the commission set it.

The new Parliament building was designed by the architect Bimal Patel of HCP Design, built by Tata Projects on a triangular plan next to the old circular Parliament House, and inaugurated on 28 May 2023. Its interiors were organised around three national symbols: the peacock for the Lok Sabha chamber, which seats 888 members and is finished in blue-green; the lotus for the Rajya Sabha chamber, which seats 384 and is finished in red; and the banyan for the open courtyard. A joint sitting is accommodated in the Lok Sabha chamber, which can hold about 1,272 members — a capacity chosen with the eventual delimitation and enlargement of the House in view. The building carries the national emblem, the lion capital of Ashoka, in bronze on its roof, houses a Constitution Hall, and has a Foucault pendulum suspended in the central foyer. Beside the Speaker's chair stands the Sengol, the sceptre made by Vummidi Bangaru Chetty and Sons of Madras in 1947 and associated with the transfer of power from the British; its installation on the day of the inauguration was the single most discussed feature of the ceremony.

Questions about a new national landmark are cheap for an examiner to set and hard for a candidate to answer from general awareness, because the facts are all specifics: a date, a designer, a symbol, an object. MPSC's preferred method here is symbol substitution — swapping the national animal for the national bird, or one national emblem for another — and the substitution survives a careless reading because both terms are genuine national symbols. The defence is to hold the four national symbols apart as a set: the Bengal tiger is the national animal, the peacock the national bird, the lotus the national flower and the banyan the national tree, with the lion capital of Ashoka serving as the state emblem and the twenty-four-spoked Ashoka Chakra appearing on the flag. Once that set is secure, statement (a) is refuted in a second. The second habit this question rewards is checking objects as carefully as dates: the Sengol and the Ashoka Chakra are both associated with sovereignty and are easily conflated by a reader who has only seen a headline.

• The new Parliament building was inaugurated on 28 May 2023; it was designed by Bimal Patel of HCP Design and built by Tata Projects on a triangular plan.
• The Lok Sabha chamber is themed on the peacock, the national bird, and seats 888 members; the Rajya Sabha chamber is themed on the lotus, the national flower, and seats 384.
• The open courtyard is themed on the banyan, India's national tree; the Lok Sabha chamber can seat about 1,272 for a joint sitting.
• The Sengol, the 1947 sceptre from Madras associated with the transfer of power, was installed beside the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha on the day of the inauguration.
• India's national animal is the Bengal tiger; the lion capital of Ashoka is the state emblem and stands in bronze on the roof of the new building.
• The building also contains a Constitution Hall and a Foucault pendulum in the central foyer.

• Substituting the national animal for the national bird — the Lok Sabha theme is the peacock, not the lion or the tiger
• Confusing the Sengol with the Ashoka Chakra as the object installed beside the Speaker's chair
• Taking the 'all of the above' option once three statements have checked out, without testing the fourth
• Mixing up the state emblem, the lion capital of Ashoka, with the national animal

Landmark and symbol questions appear in MPSC current-affairs sections as statement lists of exactly this shape, with one symbol swapped and one object swapped. They are also asked as single-line recall — the date of inauguration, the architect, the seating capacity. The reliable preparation for any newly inaugurated national institution is a short factsheet: date, designer, builder, capacity, distinguishing features, and any object of ceremonial significance placed inside it.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The interior design theme of the Lok Sabha chamber in the new Parliament building is based on which national symbol ?

  • (a)The lotus, India's national flower
  • (b)The peacock, India's national bird
  • (c)The Bengal tiger, India's national animal
  • (d)The banyan, India's national tree

  Answer(b) The peacock, India's national bird — the Lok Sabha chamber is finished in blue-green on the peacock theme, the Rajya Sabha chamber in red on the lotus theme, and the open courtyard is themed on the banyan.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The 'Sengol' installed in the new Parliament building is :

  • (a)A ceremonial sceptre from Tamil Nadu associated with the transfer of power in 1947, placed beside the Speaker's chair
  • (b)The twenty-four-spoked wheel that appears on the national flag
  • (c)The bronze national emblem installed on the roof of the building
  • (d)The pendulum suspended in the central foyer

  Answer(a) A ceremonial sceptre from Tamil Nadu associated with the transfer of power in 1947, placed beside the Speaker's chair — it was made in Madras in 1947 and was carried into the new building and installed on the day of the inauguration, 28 May 2023.