Minimum age for M.P. (Lower house), M.P. (Upper house) and President is

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, 25, 30 and 35. Two articles of the Constitution settle all three figures, and both say so in as many words. Article 84 lays down the qualifications for membership of Parliament, and clause (b) reads that a person must be 'in the case of a seat in the Council of States, not less than thirty years of age and, in the case of a seat in the House of the People, not less than twenty-five years of age'. That is the Rajya Sabha at 30 and the Lok Sabha at 25, in one sentence. Article 58(1)(b) then provides that no person is eligible for election as President unless he 'has completed the age of thirty-five years'. So 25, 30 and 35 — option (d). Three details make this more than a memorised triple. First, the age is only one of the conditions: Article 84(a) also requires Indian citizenship and an oath subscribed before a person authorised by the Election Commission in the form set out in the Third Schedule, and Article 84(c) lets Parliament prescribe further qualifications, which it has done through the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Second, Article 58(1)(c) adds that the President must additionally be 'qualified for election as a member of the House of the People' — so a President has to clear the Lok Sabha bar of 25 as well, which the 35-year rule of course subsumes, and must not hold an office of profit under Article 58(2). Third, there is a real historical reason why 35 feels right for the Upper House: the Draft Constitution of 1948 set the Council of States age at thirty-five in what was then Article 68-A, and the Constituent Assembly brought it down to thirty before adoption. The distractor that prints 35 for the Rajya Sabha is repeating the draft, not the Constitution. The underlying pattern is the one worth carrying: 25 for a directly elected lower chamber, 30 for an indirectly elected upper chamber, 35 for the high constitutional offices — President under Article 58, Vice-President under Article 66(3)(b) and Governor under Article 157.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Gets Parliament exactly right and then carries the Rajya Sabha figure across to the President. Thirty is the Council of States number under Article 84(b); the President's floor is thirty-five under Article 58(1)(b). This is the option a candidate picks when the two numbers 25 and 30 are remembered as a pair and the third is guessed by repetition.  (b) Right about the President and wrong about the Rajya Sabha, and wrong for an interesting reason — thirty-five was the figure in the Draft Constitution of 1948 before the Constituent Assembly lowered it to thirty. The enacted Article 84(b) says 'not less than thirty years of age' for a seat in the Council of States.  (c) Compounds the previous error and adds a figure that appears nowhere in the Constitution. No office under the Constitution carries a minimum age above thirty-five — that is the ceiling of the age qualifications, shared by the President, the Vice-President and a Governor. Forty-five is invented to look suitably senior for the head of state.

Concept: The Constitution builds age qualifications in a ladder, and the rungs track how directly the office is filled and how much authority it carries. At the bottom, Article 243F sets twenty-one years for membership of a Panchayat and Article 243V does the same for a Municipality — the lowest floor anywhere in the text. Twenty-five is the age for a directly elected legislator: the House of the People under Article 84(b), and a State Legislative Assembly under the identically worded Article 173(b). Thirty is the age for an indirectly elected upper chamber — the Council of States under Article 84(b) and a State Legislative Council under Article 173(b) — on the reasoning that a revising chamber should be filled by people with more experience behind them. Thirty-five is reserved for the offices that hold executive or constitutional authority rather than a seat: President under Article 58(1)(b), Vice-President under Article 66(3)(b) and Governor under Article 157. Age is never the only condition; each of these articles pairs it with citizenship and, for the legislatures, with an oath and whatever further qualifications Parliament lays down by law.

State PCS 2025 Q135 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q135 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer