SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 14 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Find the odd one out: Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Narendra Modi, Rajiv Gandhi

(a)Jawaharlal Nehru
(b)Atal Bihari Vajpayee
(c)Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
(d)Narendra Modi

Answer

Why

Correct — C.
Rule: group the names by the office they held.

Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Narendra Modi and Rajiv Gandhi all served as Prime Minister of India.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was India's first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, and never held the top office → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Jawaharlal Nehru — Jawaharlal Nehru was India's first Prime Minister, serving from 1947 until 1964, so he belongs inside the group of Prime Ministers.
(b)
Atal Bihari Vajpayee — Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister, his longest term running from 1999 to 2004, so he fits the group.
(d)
Narendra Modi — Narendra Modi has been Prime Minister since 2014, so he fits the group of Prime Ministers.

Concept

An odd-one-out list of people is solved by finding one feature that every name but one shares.

Party does not isolate a single name here: Nehru, Patel, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were Congress leaders, while Vajpayee and Modi headed BJP-led governments.

The office does. Five of the six names became Prime Minister; Patel, Deputy Prime Minister under Nehru, did not.

Key facts

Jawaharlal Nehru was India's first Prime Minister (1947–1964).
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was India's first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister (1947–1950) and never became Prime Minister.
Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, named in the stem but not in the options, were both Prime Ministers.

Study next

India's Prime Ministers in order, from Nehru to ModiDeputy Prime Ministers of India, beginning with PatelClassifying people by office, profession or field

Common traps

Grouping by family: the Nehru–Gandhi line (Nehru, Indira, Rajiv) against Vajpayee, Patel and Modi splits the list three and three, so it cannot pick out one name.
Remembering Patel as a leading figure of 1947 and forgetting that his office was Deputy Prime Minister, not Prime Minister.

Person classification also appears at 15 Sep 2025, 12:30, Reasoning Q.15, where Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel sits inside a group of freedom fighters and C. V. Raman, the scientist, is keyed as the odd one.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Semantic Classification — all 59 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.