Fact Check: Woman in viral video is not Anjali Birla, cleared her civil service exam in 2019

Social media users are sharing the claim that Anjali Birla, daughter of Om Birla passed the top civil service exam without even taking the test. An X user shared a video of a woman standing in front of a car in a modern outfit with the claim that she is Anjali Birla who is the daughter of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. It also claims that she suddenly appeared IRPS exam and cleared it in the first attempt.

The claim in Telugu goes as ‘లోక్ సభ స్పీకర్ ఓం బిర్లా మోడలింగ్ కుమార్తె అంజలి బిర్లా అకస్మాత్తుగా IRPS పరీక్షలో వచ్చి 2019 సంవత్సరంలో మొదటి ప్రయత్నంలోనే IRPS అయ్యింది.’ When translated it claims ‘Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla's modeling daughter Anjali Birla suddenly appeared in the IRPS exam and became IRPS in the first attempt in the year 2019.’

Though the tweet is now deleted, here is the archive of the tweet.

The claim is False. The viral video does not show Anjali Birla, daughter of Om Birla. She cleared Civil Services Exam in 2019 and is working as IAS officer since 2020 (what is this?). When searched, we found that she cracked the Civil Services exam in 2019. When we compared the original image of Anjali Birla and the screenshot from the viral video, we can see that it is not the same person. The person in the viral video is not Anjali Birla.

According to an article published in January 2021 with the headline “Lok Sabha speaker On Birla’s daughter Anjali cracks UPSC in the first attempt. According to an article published on Livemint, which shares the image of Anjali Birla, she studied political science (Honours) from Ramjas College in New Delhi and was one among te 89 candidates who were recommended by the UPSC. She cleared the competitive exam in her first attempt.

The result of the 2019 civil services examination was declared on August 4, 2020, recommending 829 candidates in order of merit for appointment to IAS, IFS, IPS, and other Group 'A' and Group 'B' central services against 927 vacancies. The commission recommended 89 candidates, including Anjali, for different civil services from its reserve list drawn based on the 2019 civil services examination.

In an interview published by NDTV on its YouTube channel, Anjali Birla stated that rumors and social media posts of her clearing the civil services examination without appearing for it affected her initially but ended up fortifying her for a future in public service.

"There should be a law against trolling. We should trace people and make them accountable - those spreading fake news... Today I am a victim, tomorrow somebody else could be a victim," she told NDTV in an interview. This interview was done by her after there were rumors about her selection in the CSE.

According to a press note published by UPSC, Anjali Birla appeared for the Civil Service exam in 2019 and cleared it. Later, we found that she was on the reserve list by the UPSC, which is by Rules 16 (4) & (5) of the Civil Service Examination Rules that mandate UPSC to maintain a consolidated reserve list in order of merit.

Here are the screenshots of the results from UPSC, using which we can prove that she appeared in the exam and got selected for it.

Hence, the claim that the video shows Anjali Birla and that she suddenly appeared in the IRPS exam and got selected during her first attempt is False. She not only appeared in the UPSC exam for Civil services Exam in 2019, but also cleared it. She is an Indian civil services officer (Batch 2020) working in the Ministry of Railways and has done her graduation in Political Science from Delhi University. She has an interest in International Relations particularly in India’s relations with its neighbours.