Assertion (A) : Ashoka annexed Kalinga to the Mauryan Empire. Reason (R) : Kalinga controlled the land and sea routes to South India.

Assertion is true: Ashoka’s decisive campaign in the eighth year of his reign resulted in the annexation of Kalinga to the Mauryan Empire [2]. The Reason is also true: Kalinga was a significant coastal polity stretching roughly from the Ganga to the Godavari, commanding an important stretch of the eastern seaboard and coastal resources that linked the Gangetic heartland with peninsular India by land and sea [1]. Contemporary and later accounts indicate that one motive for the Kalinga campaign was strategic control over the eastern approaches and access to maritime and overland routes toward South India and the Bay of Bengal—making R a correct explanation for A.

Sources

1. [2] History , class XI (Tamilnadu state board 2024 ed.) > Chapter 4: Emergence of State and Empire > Ashoka > p. 51
2. [1] https://magazines.odisha.gov.in/Orissareview/2014/Dec/engpdf/37-43.pdf