The Muslim League accepted the Lucknow Pact but rejected the Nehru Report because

Answer & Explanation

Correct answer: (A) One offered Muslims more representation than the proportion of their population while the other did not.

The key difference lies in what each agreement offered Muslims in terms of political representation:

• The Lucknow Pact (1916) was acceptable to the Muslim League because it granted Muslims separate electorates and weightage in representation — meaning Muslims got seats in provincial legislatures beyond their actual population proportion in Hindu-majority provinces. For instance, Muslims were around 15% of UP’s population but got roughly one-third representation. This was a significant concession by the Congress to secure Hindu-Muslim unity against the British.
• The Nehru Report (1928), on the other hand, recommended joint electorates with reserved seats based on population proportion, and rejected the principle of weightage. It also proposed a strong unitary centre. The Muslim League, under Jinnah and others, saw this as a drastic reduction of the political safeguards Muslims had enjoyed under the Lucknow Pact. Jinnah proposed amendments (his famous "Fourteen Points") but these were rejected, leading the League to turn away from the Report.