Oops! Fitness trainer mistaken for 'India's hottest MLA'

In a case of mistaken identity, an Ahmedabad-based fitness professional, Sapna Vyas Patel, has found herself sharing social media space with ‘India's hottest MLA'.

Sapna Vyas Patel (left) and Angoorlata Deka

Social media networks are buzzing after giving the epithet of ‘the hottest MLA' to Assamese actor Angoorlata Deka - a political greenhorn who trounced veteran Gautam Bora in the assembly election - with plenty of comments following pictures of Deka, either slamming people for calling her "hawwwwt", screaming sexist or telling people to loosen up and have some fun.

Social media posts, though, show that in a couple of pictures, Deka, who has made it to the assembly on a BJP ticket from the Batadroba constituency, has been mistakenly replaced by Sapna Vyas Patel, a fitness professional.

Sapna told mid-day on the phone from Ahmedabad, "I realised that my pictures, ones with me in a T-shirt and track pants are being used on social media, stating that they are of Angoorlata Deka. I think they have been picked up because I am very well known on social media. In fact, I am told by some of my followers on these networks that my pictures appeared yesterday in a Punjab paper as Angoorlata Deka!"

Sapna is flustered rather than flattered by the ‘hot' label. "I run an online fitness consultancy. I also have an app on it," said Sapna, who believes she has reached so many followers because her story had the ooooh-how-did-she-do-that? factor. "I became popular because I posted pictures of my story, telling people how I lost 33 kg in one year." Sapna said she has 4 lakh followers on Instagram.

"It is time that people in this country do proper verification and use posts from credible sources. Before pressing the share button, check your sources and credibility," she advised.

The fitness professional claimed she is contemplating legal action, but was not certain about how she would go about it.