Which Constitution Amendment Act reduced the voting age from 21 years to 18 years ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, the 61st Constitutional Amendment Act. The 61st Amendment Act, 1988 amended Article 326 of the Constitution to lower the minimum voting age in elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies from 21 years to 18 years. Enacted under PM Rajiv Gandhi and brought into force in 1989, it enfranchised crores of young Indians.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Wrong — the 66th Amendment Act, 1990 added a number of State land-reform Acts to the Ninth Schedule to shield them from judicial review; it has nothing to do with the voting age.  (b) Wrong — the 62nd Amendment Act, 1989 extended the reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes and the nomination of Anglo-Indians (Article 334) for a further ten years; it did not touch the franchise age.  (d) Wrong — the 63rd Amendment Act, 1989 repealed the special emergency-related provisions for Punjab that the 59th Amendment had introduced; it is unrelated to the voting age.

Concept: Article 326 fixes elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies on the basis of universal adult suffrage. As originally adopted, the qualifying age was 21 years. The 61st Constitutional Amendment Act, 1988 substituted 'eighteen years' for 'twenty-one years' in Article 326, lowering the voting age to 18 — one of the most consequential franchise reforms since independence.

State PCS 2021 Q22 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2021 Q22 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer