Anubhi Saxena
Mumbai: Days before the national election 2019, film star Urmila Matondkar joined the Congress on Wednesday after a meeting with party president Rahul Gandhi. The actor is said to be in the estimating for a Congress nomination from Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency.
Urmila Matondkar started her career in Bollywood as a child artist. She came into the bollywood’s limelight with her role in Shekhar Kapoor’s 1983 movie ‘Masoom‘. Urmila won the Filmfare best actress award in 1995 for Ram Gopal Verma’s ‘Rangeela‘. Urmila was last seen in a special appearance for Abhinay Deo’s ‘Blackmail‘ in 2018.
Matondkar was accompanied to Delhi by Mumbai Congress chief Milind Deora and senior leader Sanjay Nirupam. Later, addressing a press conference, Matondkar said she joined the Congress because the party was led by a leader who believed in equality. India is riddled with the problems of unemployment and she wishes to work on that.
[bctt tweet=”Support Urmila and Congress? Let Everyone know it”]The name of Matondkar, 45, has been meeting with Congress since the past few days as the Congress grappled for an effective counter to the BJP. If nominated, Matondkar’s dreadful opponent would be Bharatiya Janata Party’s essential MP Gopal Shetty in the constituency that was once considered a BJP support.
Matondkar felt the need to join the Congress party as the freedom to express was under attack in the country and there are numerous examples in this regard in the last five years. Congress party has participated in the freedom struggle and it stood for freedom. Matondkar also lauded the leadership of Gandhi.
“Today is a significant day for me as I have formally entered politics. My life has been inspired by Mahatma Gandhi from the days of my childhood,” she said.
Milind Deora, Mumbai Regional Congress Committee Chief, said, “I have known Urmila-ji for years. She is not just one of India’s finest artistes, but someone who is extremely opinionated on issues affecting our society and someone taking the political step for the long run to serve the country through the Congress party”.
Incidentally, besides Mumbai North-West constituency, the Mumbai North is the only Lok Sabha seat in the country’s commercial capital which has ever elected a well-known film personality. Mumbai’s six Lok Sabha constituencies will vote on April 29 along with 17 others in the state’s fourth phase of polling.
The Congress’ “star power” is set to get further uplift with the joining of Shatrughan Sinha, a two-term MP from Patna Sahib, on Thursday. The BJP has already discarded Sinha and fielded Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from the seat.
