No, Reliance Is Not Donating a Solar Power Plant To the Ram Temple

A source close to Reliance industries told us that the viral claim is false.

A viral message on social media is being shared with a false claim that the Reliance Group has donated a Solar Power Plant to Ayodhya’s Ram Mandir Trust.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A viral message on social media is being shared with a false claim that the Reliance Group has donated a Solar Power Plant to Ayodhya’s Ram Mandir Trust.

CLAIM

The claim, which is being massively circulated on Facebook and Twitter, reads: “सुना है कि रिलांयस ने राम मंदिर को सौर ऊर्जा कम्प्लीट प्लांट भेंट किया है।जनरेटर की जरूरत नहीं पड़ेगी मंदिर को”

(Translation: We’ve heard that Reliance has donated a Solar Power Plant to the Ram Mandir. The temple will not need a generator now.)

An archived version of the post can be accessed here.

An archived version of the post can be accessed here.

The claim was also circulated as a tweet by an account claiming to be Nita Ambani.

An archived version of the post can be accessed here.

A screenshot of this tweet was viral on Facebook.

You can view the posts here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We searched on Google with ‘Reliance donation for Ram Mandir’ and found a report by Hindustan Times dated 28 December 2020, which stated that a nationwide donation drive for the temple will start only from 15 January.

Further, there were no reports on any donation by Reliance to the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple Trust.

Next, we reached out to Reliance and a source close to the company told us that the claim is false and if such a donation will be made, the group will announce it via official channels.

DID NITA AMBANI TWEET ABOUT THE DONATION?

The account claiming to be Nita Ambani was created in September 2020 and has already gained over 17,700 followers.

However, the account is fake, as evidenced by red flags like the wrong spelling of the name in the Twitter handle, where ‘Ambani’ is spelt as ‘Amabani.’

You can view an archived version here.

Going through their tweets, we saw that the account had only started tweeting on 8 December 2020 and was clearly made in bid to gain followers, as indicated by several tweets asking for retweets and ‘promises’ of follow-backs.

You can view an archived version here.

Clearly, a fabricated claim about Reliance donating a Solar Power Plant to the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya was circulated on the internet.

A similar claim about Mukesh Ambani donating Rs 500 crore for the construction of the temple went viral in 2019 and was debunked by fact-checking website BOOM.

(Editor’s Note: The story has been updated to add a tweet from an account impersonating Nita Ambani, making the same claim.)

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