Which of the following festivals is celebrated in Madhya Pradesh?

Correct — D. The Khajuraho Dance Festival is held at Khajuraho, in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh, staged against the temple group there.

It is a classical dance event, and its setting is what fixes the state: Khajuraho is a Madhya Pradesh site, so a festival named for it is a Madhya Pradesh festival.

Each of the other three names belongs to a different state, which leaves option (d).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Thaipusam Festival — Thaipusam is a Tamil festival for Lord Murugan, observed in Tamil Nadu and by Tamil communities abroad, not in Madhya Pradesh.
• (b)
  Bihu Festival — Bihu is the festival of Assam, with Rongali Bihu in spring marking the Assamese new year.
• (c)
  Jaisalmer Desert Festival — The Desert Festival is held at Jaisalmer in Rajasthan and takes its whole character from the Thar dunes around it.

SSC's festival items are a festival-to-state match, and the fastest route is the place name sitting inside the festival's own title.

Khajuraho is a village in Madhya Pradesh and Jaisalmer a city in Rajasthan, so each title answers its own question. Where the title carries no place name — Thaipusam, Bihu — you have to know the community instead: Tamil for the first, Assamese for the second.

Khajuraho carries a second fact worth holding beside the first: the Khajuraho Group of Monuments is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Key facts

• The Khajuraho Dance Festival is held annually at Khajuraho in Chhatarpur district, Madhya Pradesh.
• The Khajuraho Group of Monuments is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• Bihu is the festival of Assam.
• The Desert Festival is held at Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.

Common traps

• Placing Khajuraho in Uttar Pradesh. It lies in Madhya Pradesh, in Bundelkhand near the state border.
• Guessing from the sound of a name. Thaipusam and Bihu carry no place inside them and simply have to be known.

No directly related past PYQ was found.