UPSC Prelims 2021— Question 4

Constitutional government is government limited by a constitution and by constitutional rules. The defining idea is limitation of public power, not whether the head has nominal or real powers or whether the state has a federal structure. Parliamentary and presidential systems can both be constitutional if governmental authority is legally constrained. The final answer-key position for Set C identifies option D as the correct option. Option A — a representative government of a nation with federal structure — is not correct because it does not satisfy the specific condition tested in the question; it represents an alternative that is contradicted, incomplete, or less precise than the accepted answer. Option B — a government whose Head enjoys nominal powers — is not correct because it does not satisfy the specific condition tested in the question; it represents an alternative that is contradicted, incomplete, or less precise than the accepted answer. Option C — a government whose Head enjoys real powers — is not correct because it does not satisfy the specific condition tested in the question; it represents an alternative that is contradicted, incomplete, or less precise than the accepted answer. Option D — a government limited by the terms of the Constitution — is correct because it is the alternative that matches the constitutional, historical, geographical, scientific or economic principle established above. For PYQ interpretation, the distinction between the correct alternative and merely related facts is important. UPSC often places plausible distractors beside the precise statement that matches the underlying rule, chronology, definition or empirical relationship. The answer should therefore be read against the exact wording of the question rather than against a broadly related fact.