Consider the formation of following States and arrange these in chronological order : I. Goa II. Telangana III. Jharkhand IV. Haryana Select the correct answer from the codes given below. Codes:

The correct order is IV, I, III, II, which is option B. Haryana came first on 1 November 1966 under the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966. Goa became a full state on 30 May 1987 under the Goa, Daman and Diu Reorganisation Act, 1987, after being a Union Territory since 1961. Jharkhand followed on 15 November 2000 under the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000. Telangana was the last, formed on 2 June 2014 under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.

• Option A is wrong because it places Goa before Haryana, and Telangana cannot come before Jharkhand.
• Option C is wrong because it places Jharkhand before Haryana and Goa, and Telangana before Haryana.
• Option D is invalid as printed, since it repeats III and drops II, so it cannot be a valid sequence.

The core concept is the sequence of state reorganisation through Parliament's laws. For Mains, this links to centre-state relations and the debate on creating new states on linguistic, administrative or economic grounds.

Trap: Aspirants often date Goa from its 1961 liberation or Union Territory status rather than its 1987 statehood, and so place Goa too early.