The language spoken by the second largest number of speakers in India after Hindi is—

BPSC treated this question as having no correct option (cancelled).

Explanation

On the basis of the 2011 Census, among the given options, Telugu (6.7%) is spoken by the highest number of speakers after Hindi. The first seven most spoken languages in India are— (1) Hindi (43.63%), (2) Bengali (8.03%), (3) Marathi (6.86%), (4) Telugu (6.70%), (5) Tamil (5.70%), (6) Gujarati (4.58%) and (7) Urdu (4.19%). The question asks for the second most spoken language after Hindi, but Bengali is not mentioned in any of the four options. Therefore, none of the options is correct. The nearest correct answer would be option (a) Marathi.