With reference to 'Vice-President of India', which of the following statements is/are correct ?
1. The Vice-President is the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
2. Vice-President is a member of th

Question

With reference to 'Vice-President of India', which of the following statements is/are correct ?
1. The Vice-President is the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
2. Vice-President is a member of the Rajya Sabha.
Select the correct answer from the code given below :
Code :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, Only 1. Statement 1 is right, and the Constitution says it in so many words: Article 64 provides that 'The Vice-President shall be ex officio Chairman of the Council of States' — the Rajya Sabha. Statement 2 is wrong, and that inversion is the whole point of the question: the Vice-President presides over the Rajya Sabha without ever being a member of it. Article 66(2) makes this explicit — if a sitting member of either House of Parliament, or of a State legislature, is elected Vice-President, he is deemed to have vacated that seat on the day he enters upon his office. Because he is not a member, the Chairman has no ordinary vote in the House; under Article 100(1) he votes only to break a tie. Contrast the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, who is and remains a member of the House he presides over, and the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha (Article 89), who is elected by the House from among its own members. Only statement 1 stands, so the answer is (d). Exam-date note: the office was very much in the news in this cycle — Jagdeep Dhankhar resigned on 21 July 2025 and C. P. Radhakrishnan took office as the 15th Vice-President on 12 September 2025, a month before this paper was written on 12 October 2025.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This accepts statement 2, which is false. The Vice-President is the presiding officer of the Rajya Sabha but not a member of it — Article 66(2) requires anyone who already holds a seat in Parliament or a State legislature to give it up on becoming Vice-President. Presiding over a House and belonging to it are two different things.  (b) This is the exact reverse of the truth. It rejects the one statement that is textually correct (Article 64 makes the Vice-President ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha) and accepts the one that is false (membership of the House).  (c) Statement 1 is a direct restatement of Article 64, so at least one statement is correct. A candidate reaches this option by over-correcting — realising that the Vice-President is not a member of the Rajya Sabha and then wrongly assuming his chairmanship must also be a myth.

Concept: The Vice-President of India holds two distinct offices at once. Article 63 creates the post itself, and Article 64 attaches to it the ex-officio chairmanship of the Rajya Sabha — so the second-highest constitutional functionary in the country spends his working day as the presiding officer of the Upper House. Crucially, that chairmanship is held from outside the House: the Vice-President is not a member of the Rajya Sabha, and Article 66(2) forces him to surrender any seat he already holds in Parliament or a State legislature. This is what distinguishes him from the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, who presides over a House of which he remains a member.

State PCS 2025 Q76 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q76 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer