Matondkar will contest against sitting Bharatiya Janata Party MP Gopal Shetty.
Actress Urmila Matondkar accompanied by party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala and leaders Sanjay Nirupam and Milind Deora, addresses after joining the party in New Delhi. (Photo: IANS)
Bollywood actress Urmila Matondkar on Friday was named as the Congress candidate for the Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency.
She will contest against sitting Bharatiya Janata Party MP Gopal Shetty. Shetty had defeated Sanjay Nirupam in 2014.
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Urmila Matondkar on Wednesday joined the Congress after meeting party chief Rahul Gandhi at his residence. Gandhi welcomed her in the party fold and wished her the best.
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“I am here because I believe in the ideology of Congress and what the party stands for. I have not joined the party for the sake of elections,” she told reporters after joining the party.
“I am taking my first step in active politics. I am from a family that has shaped my political views based on the ideology of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel. It is another matter that despite being from an academics-oriented family, I joined films. But I had social awareness right from childhood,” said the actor.
Married to Kashmiri actor-model-businessman Mohsin Akhtar Mir, Matondkar is the second Bollywood actor to contest from Mumbai North.
Matondkar, who has several hit Hindi films to her name, 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 Mir.
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. The results will be announced on May 23.
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