Which one of the following statements is not correct about Dadabhai Naoroji?

Our answer is D. Dadabhai Naoroji presided over the Indian National Congress three times, in 1886 (Calcutta), 1893 (Lahore) and 1906 (Calcutta), not four.

• A is correct: In 1854 he became Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Elphinstone College, Bombay, the first Indian to hold a professorship there.
• B is correct: He was elected as a Liberal MP from Finsbury Central in 1892, the first Indian to sit in the British House of Commons.
• C is correct: He founded the Gujarati weekly Rast Goftar in 1851 to promote social and religious reform.
• D is incorrect: The count is three, so this is the statement to mark.

The concept here is the Indian National Congress's early leadership and the Moderate phase, which he dominated through the drain of wealth theory and the economic critique of British rule. For Mains, his drain theory links directly to GS-III questions on colonial economic policy.

Trap: Candidates often mix up his presidencies with the number of times he was elected to Parliament or with the total of Congress sessions he attended, and pick a number that merely sounds plausible.