If certain media reports are to be believed, Bollywood actor Urmila Matondkar may contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Mumbai North constituency. She is likely to enter electoral politics as a Congress candidate.
Matondkar, who shot to fame as a child artiste after acting in Shekhar Kapoor’s 1983 film ‘Masoom’ , may end Congress’ quest for a candidate for the Mumbai North Lok Sabha seat that it lost in 2014 when Gopal Shetty of the BJP defeated Sanjay Nirupam.
While Nirupam or any Congress spokesperson, as also Matondkar, are yet to make an official comment on the matter, the Congress announced on Monday that Nirupam would be contesting from Mumbai North-West.
Also, Nirupam is no longer the Mumbai Congress spokesperson as the AICC in a sudden decision on Monday replaced him with Milind Deora.
A candidate for Mumbai North is yet to be announced and an IANS report said, quoting “political sources”, Matondkar’s name was at “an advanced stage of consideration by the party leadership”. The final decision is likely soon.
The six Lok Sabha constituencies in Mumbai will go to polls on 29 April along with 17 others in the state in its fourth phase of the elections.
Married to Kashmiri actor-model-businessman Mohsin Akhtar Mir, Matondkar will be the second Bollywood actor to contest from Mumbai North if nominated. The 45-year-old will have to fight against sitting MP Gopal Shetty if she accepts the Congress candidacy.
The seat was once considered a BJP bastion but the Congress had managed to wrest it in 2004. Staging a major upset, actor Govinda defeated former petroleum minister Ram Naik of the BJP, earning the title of ‘giant-killer’. Naik, the current Governor of Uttar Pradesh, lost the 2009 elections too, this time to Nirupam.
In 2014, Gopal Shetty defeated Sanjay Nirupam by nearly 4.5 lakh votes.
Matondkar, who has given several hit Hindi films, has also acted in Marathi and South Indian films and even television serials, and was last seen in Abhinay Deo’s 2018 film Blackmail. She also produced a Marathi film, Madhuri, in 2018 along with husband MA Mir.