Daughter of prominent BJP politician did take India’s top civil service exam, records show

This article is more than one year old.
Published on January 18, 2021 at 11:52
2 min read
By AFP India

Facebook posts circulating in India claim that the daughter of Om Birla, the speaker of India’s lower house of Parliament, passed the top civil service exam without even taking the test. The claim is false; official exam records show that Anjali Birla took both the preliminary and main tests of India’s civil service exam in 2019.

The claim was published alongside a photo of Om Birla and his daughter Anjali on Facebook here on January 7, 2021.

The post’s Hindi caption translates to English as: “Om Birla’s daughter cleared IAS in the first attempt. She didn’t undertake any exam. 90 seats kept for back door entry (reserve list) for the country's most prestigious examination are being used for officials with power instead of poor, hard-working, people from a rural background and deserving candidates.”

The IAS exam, also known as the Civil Services Examination, is a highly competitive testing process for candidates seeking to join the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), the administrative branch of the Indian government. The test is administered by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) every year.

The photo and the claim were also published on Facebook here, here and here.

The claim, however, is false.

Anjali Birla’s name does appear on the list of reserve candidates from the 2019 examinations published on the UPSC website here.

Anjali Birla’s roll number — 0851876, as seen above — appears on the IAS’ list of 2019 preliminary exam takers here and main exam takers here.

Anjali Birla also refuted the false claim, calling it “baseless criticism” in an Instagram post on January 8, 2021.

“Rumours have always been fun to hear but I haven’t come across such a baseless, mindless criticism,” she said.

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