Ever since BJP candidate Angoorlata Deka won in the Assam assembly elections, the normally neglected north-east has attainted sudden news value for a lot of people.
Unless you have been living under a rock, it is difficult to have not noticed that everybody seems to be interested in this first-time MLA from Bardowa for multiple reasons.
A model and a television actor, Angoorlata has been in the news for not necessarily winning the election, but for being “the hottest MLA”. A tweet by filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma that ‘acche din has indeed come’, along with her photograph can only be proof of the inherent nasty sexism that is making a public appearance.
Identifying the latest ‘social media trends’, Asianet News on Wednesday, published an article titled ‘India’s hottest MLA’, with photographs of ‘the glamour girl’ Angoorlata. What’s more, when the article was shared on their official Facebook page, the main image happened to be a different photograph apart from the ones included in the ‘photo gallery’.
According to the report, Angoorlata’s photographs have been doing its rounds on WhatsApp and social media platforms. However, one of the pictures being circulated in the name of the MLA belongs to a different woman.
Sapna Vyas Patel, a fitness trainer by profession, has lashed out at the people circulating her photograph in the name of the MLA. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, she appeals to the users to share her post to ‘make internet a believable source of information’.
Speaking to The News Minute, Angoorlata Deka said that she prefers to ignore the deplorable comments that people and a section of the media continues to make. “It does not disturb me that people tend to discuss my beauty over my competence, but I want them to realize that beauty lies in one’s personality. Just like I was able to pull off a successful acting career, my immediate aim is to concentrate on the development of my constituency. People would always have a lot of things to say about a person, but I prefer to ignore them,” she said.
What is surprising is that this is not the first time such objectification has taken place. Munnar Assistant Superintendent of Police Merin Joseph IPS, on May 22, lashed out at an article for its ‘shameless objectification and propagation of patriarchal structures reducing a lady’s worth to her face value’. The article titled ’10 most beautiful female IAS and IPS officers in India’ appeared on DainikBhaskar.com.
The article was later taken down from the website. However, it is understood to have re-appeared on May 23rd with a different headline on DailyBhaskar.com. The new headline reads: “Beauty with brains: Meet these IAS, IPS officers of India who are an inspiration to every woman”.
Saying that such articles are demeaning to their identities as smart, intelligent self-made women, Merin wrote: “Have you ever wondered why we never see a list of the most handsome males in the IAS and IPS?”