Statement: Should there be a maximum limit for the number of ministers in the…

Concept:

In a Statement–Argument item, an argument is judged "strong" only when it is directly relevant to the statement AND points to a real, specific, significant consequence — not a bare assertion of principle, a vague generality, or an unstated assumption. An argument is "weak" when it merely restates a right or opinion without tying it to a concrete effect of the proposal under discussion.

Application:

1. Argument I claims the ruling party should have unrestricted discretion over how many ministers to appoint. This is a general assertion of political freedom — it does not identify any specific consequence of having an unlimited number of ministers, so it fails the "real, significant consequence" test and is weak.

2. Argument II proposes capping the number of ministers at a fixed percentage of parliamentary seats specifically to avoid unnecessary government expenditure. This ties the recommendation to a concrete, measurable, and significant outcome (controlling wasteful spending), so it clears the bar for a strong argument.

Cross-check:

This is corroborated outside the item itself: India's own Constitution embodies a similar policy logic. The 91st Constitutional Amendment Act, 2003 inserted Article 75(1A), capping the Union Council of Ministers (including the Prime Minister) at 15% of the Lok Sabha's total membership — one stated aim being to curb the expenditure and instability of oversized ministries. The item's proposed percentage-of-seats mechanism isn't identical to that specific 15%-of-Lok-Sabha formula, but both share the same underlying idea: a numerical cap tied to legislative strength to control cost and overcrowding, which lends real-world weight to the expenditure-based reasoning over the bare discretion claim.

Result:

Since the discretion-based reasoning is a generic claim with no tied consequence (weak) and the expenditure-based reasoning identifies a specific, significant consequence (strong), only the expenditure-based argument holds.