As Malda awaits the official list of the 12 BJP candidates who would be contesting the Assembly elections, a purported list of such names has gone viral on social media, causing much excitement and triggering speculations.

District BJP leaders, however, termed it a “fake list.”

The purported list showed that Srirupa Mitra Choudhury, who was the candidate for the South Malda constituency in the last parliamentary elections, would contest the Assembly elections in the Baishnabnagar constituency. “The 12 names, along with the constituencies they would contest the polls from have gone viral on social media since yesterday,” a party source said.

According to the ‘list,’ Amlan Bhaduri, who very recently switched sides from the Trinamul Congress to the BJP, would contest the polls from English Bazaar, while the sabhadhipati of the Malda Zila Parishad, Gour Chandra Mandal, who also defected to the BJP, would contest from Manikchak, and yet another MLA from Gazole Dipali Biswas, who also defected to the saffron camp, would contest from the Gazole seat.

Further, the ‘list’ showed Payel Khatun, the karmadhakhya of the ZP from Ratua, and Sarala Murmu, who had a TMC ticket to contest the polls in Habibpur, as the candidates of the BJP in the same seats. The other names are Nagardeep Ghosh from Mothabari, Nandan Kumar Ghosh from Sujapur, Gopal Saha from Maldaha, Bankat Ram from Chanchal, Imdadul Hoque from Malatipur and Motiur Rahaman from Harishchandrapur.

“After the BJP won the North Malda seat and lost South Malda by a meager margin in the parliamentary elections in 2019, all eyes here are now on the names of the candidates of the BJP in Malda district,” an observer said.

District BJP president Gobinda Chandra Mandal, however, said: “This is a fake list as nothing has been finalized . People are curious to know the candidates, so someone might have created such a list to make it viral.”

Meanwhile, a group of TMC supporters staged a protest and demanded change in the party candidate for the Sujapur constituency. They said they wanted Abdul Hannan to contest the polls and not Abdul Ghani, who has been nominated by the party.

According to them, Hannan had been a social worker for a long time there and they expected him to have the TMC ticket in Sujapur.

District president of the TMC Mausam Noor, however, said, “The candidates were chosen by Mamata Banerjee and we will act as per her directions and nothing else.”