UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 16 of 150

Correct — C, III, I, II, IV — that is, Telugu Desam Party, then Bahujan Samaj Party, then Samajwadi Party, then All India Trinamool Congress. The Telugu Desam Party is the oldest of the four, founded in 1982 by the film star N. T. Rama Rao, and it formed a government in Andhra Pradesh soon afterwards. The Bahujan Samaj Party came next, founded by Kanshi Ram on 14 April 1984 — Ambedkar Jayanti, a date he chose deliberately — after he had spent the previous years building BAMCEF in 1978 and DS-4 in 1981 as the movement's scaffolding. The Samajwadi Party followed in 1992, formed by Mulayam Singh Yadav out of the Janata Dal's splintering. The All India Trinamool Congress is the youngest, founded in 1998 by Mamata Banerjee after she broke with the Indian National Congress in West Bengal. The four therefore run 1982, 1984, 1992, 1998, and only option (c) reproduces that sequence. Day-level dates for three of the four (29 March 1982 for the TDP, 4 October 1992 for the SP, 1 January 1998 for the AITC) are widely reported but we could not confirm them against a primary source, so treat the YEARS as the load-bearing facts — which is all the question turns on.

• (a)II, I, III, IV — Puts the Samajwadi Party first and the Telugu Desam Party third. That is a decade out of place: the TDP was founded in 1982, ten years before the SP in 1992.
• (b)I, II, III, IV — The lazy guess that the order printed in the question is the answer. It puts the BSP (1984) ahead of the TDP (1982), which is the one comparison a candidate is most likely to get wrong.
• (d)III, II, I, IV — Gets the first and last entries right — TDP oldest, Trinamool youngest — but reverses the middle pair. The BSP (1984) is eight years older than the Samajwadi Party (1992), not younger.

These four parties mark the two waves that broke the Congress system. The first is the regional-identity wave of the early 1980s, of which the Telugu Desam Party is the classic case — a party built on Telugu self-respect that captured a State from the Congress almost immediately. The second is the social-justice and Mandal-era wave of the late 1980s and 1990s, which produced the BSP's Dalit-Bahujan mobilisation and the SP's backward-class and minority coalition in Uttar Pradesh. The Trinamool Congress belongs to a third pattern altogether: a personal breakaway from the Congress that grew into the dominant party of its State.

Chronology items are won by fixing the extremes first. Trinamool is obviously the youngest of the four — it is a 1998 split from the Congress — and that alone kills nothing, since every option ends with IV. So work from the front instead: the TDP is the only one of the four founded before the Mandal era, which puts III first and eliminates options (a) and (b) at once. The remaining decision is BSP versus SP, and the anchor there is that Kanshi Ram founded the BSP in 1984, before the Mandal Commission report was implemented in 1990, whereas Mulayam Singh Yadav's SP emerged from the Janata Dal's break-up after it.

• Telugu Desam Party — founded 1982 by N. T. Rama Rao; the oldest of the four.
• Bahujan Samaj Party — founded by Kanshi Ram on 14 April 1984, Ambedkar Jayanti; preceded by his BAMCEF (1978) and DS-4 (1981).
• Samajwadi Party — founded in 1992 by Mulayam Singh Yadav.
• All India Trinamool Congress — founded in 1998 by Mamata Banerjee; the youngest of the four.

• Assuming the order printed in the question is the answer. Here that guess, option (b), is wrong at the very first step.
• Dating the BSP to the Mandal era. It was founded in 1984, six years before the Mandal recommendations were implemented.
• Confusing the founding of a party with its first electoral win or its first government — the TDP was founded in 1982 and formed a government soon after, but the two dates are not the same fact.

UPPSC prefers the four-item chronological code for party foundings; UPSC more often tests a single founding — who founded which party and in which year — or the rules that make a party 'national'. Both reward carrying founding years, not just founders.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Bahujan Samaj Party was founded by Kanshi Ram in which year, and on which symbolically chosen date?

  • (a)1978, on 6 December
  • (b)1981, on 26 January
  • (c)1984, on 14 April
  • (d)1992, on 2 October

  Answer(c) 1984, on 14 April — Ambedkar Jayanti. Kanshi Ram had earlier founded BAMCEF in 1978 and DS-4 in 1981 as the movement's organisational base.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following political parties was founded EARLIEST?

  • (a)All India Trinamool Congress
  • (b)Samajwadi Party
  • (c)Telugu Desam Party
  • (d)Bahujan Samaj Party

  Answer(c) Telugu Desam Party — founded in 1982, ahead of the BSP (1984), the Samajwadi Party (1992) and the Trinamool Congress (1998).