Fact Check: Woman in viral video is neither would-be- owner of Padmanabha Swamy temple nor member of royal family

Hyderabad: The Supreme Court recently upheld the rights of the Travancore royal family in the administration of the Padmanabha Swamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram of Kerala.

Later, a video of a woman thanking the court, lawyers and supporters became viral on social media.

"After 11 years of court battles and winning the case of #Padmanabhaswamytemple, a member of #Travancore Royal family talks on the verdict. A slap on the #Communist government in #Kerala. #Hinduism #Hindus," said a user.

"She is the owner of Padmanabhan temple now!!" said another social media user

After the court verdict, she may be the richest person in the world!!!"

"Statement from a member of the royal family of Travancore, on Padmanabh Temple judgment"

And so on.

News Meter received requests from readers to check the facts behind the claims and we obliged it.

FACT CHECK:

We started with the reverse image search of the woman and found that her name is Shilpa Nair. Shilpa is the president of an organization, 'People for Dharma', which creates awareness and seeks legal remedies for the protection of temples from state interference and political exploitation.

'People for Dharma' intervened in the case against the attempts of the Kerala government to take over the Padmanabha Swamy temple. As per her Twitter bio, Shilpa is also a BJP member, an entrepreneur, a dancer, and one of the few people being followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

We also found the video in question is pinned on the Twitter profile of Shilpa Nair.

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In the video released after the verdict, she thanked the Supreme Court for upholding the rights of the royal family, the lawyers Saideepak and Suvidutt Sundaram for their untiring arguments for the case and all supporters of their organization.

After learning about the claims made by social media users, Shilpa responded on Twitter again and clarified that she is a devotee of Padmanabha Swamy and president of People for Dharma, but nothing more or nothing less.

Hence, the claim that Shilpa Nair is a member of the royal family of Travancore and would-be-owner of the Padmanbha Swamy temple is FALSE!