Trupti Desai is an Indian social activist born on 12 December 1985 in Nipani taluka, Belagavi (Belgaum) district, Karnataka, on the border with Maharashtra. Her family originally belonged to Kolhapur, Maharashtra, and relocated to Pune when she was eight years old. She studied home science for one year at SNDT Women's University's Pune campus before family problems forced her to drop out. She is married to Prashant Desai (m. 2006) and has a son, Yogiraj Desai; her sister is Tejashree Shinde. She began her activism career through Krantiveer Jhopdi Vikas Sangh in Pune, working to rehabilitate slum dwellers in 2003. From 2007 to 2009, she staged sustained protests against financial irregularities at the Ajit Cooperative Bank - a ₹50 crore fraud case linked to then-minister Ajit Pawar - successfully getting the case resolved for 35,000 defrauded depositors despite multiple death threats. In 2010, she founded the Bhumata Brigade and Bhumata Foundation, a Pune-based NGO fighting for women's rights, anti-corruption, and social justice. She contested the 2012 Pune Municipal Corporation elections as an INC candidate. In 2015, outraged by a cleansing ritual performed after a woman entered Shani Shingnapur Temple, she mobilised a nationwide campaign to assert women's right to worship there - and on 8 April 2016, she and a group of women entered the temple for the first time in over 400 years, a landmark moment in India's gender rights movement. She subsequently campaigned for women's entry at Haji Ali Dargah, Mahalakshmi Temple, Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple, and Sabarimala. She entered Bigg Boss Marathi Season 3 on 19 September 2021, was evicted on Day 50 (Week 7), but re-entered the house on Day 78 (Week 12) alongside Sneha Wagh and Adish Vaidya. She was re-nominated immediately after re-entry and did not stay long, finishing 11th overall.

Founder-President of Bhumata Brigade and Bhumata Foundation, Pune; successfully leading the women's entry movement at Shani Shingnapur Temple (April 2016, ending a 400-year tradition barring women); campaigning for women's entry at Haji Ali Dargah, Mahalakshmi Temple, Trimbakeshwar Shiva Temple, and Sabarimala; INC candidate for Pune Municipal Corporation elections (2012); exposing a ₹50 crore cooperative bank fraud (2009); Bigg Boss Marathi Season 3 contestant who re-entered (11th place).

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