Mumbai: Actor Urmila Matondkar is set to leave the tinsel town for a stint in politics. The actor joined Congress on Wednesday, March 27 in the presence of party President Rahul Gandhi. 

Sources claim that the party has reportedly welcomed the move, even touting her to be a potential 'game changer' for Congress just like Govinda had been in 2004. 

According to ANI, Urmila is likely to contest elections from the Mumbai North Lok Sabha constituency to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) sitting member of Parliament, Gopal Shetty.

 

 

The 45-year-old actor called her initiation in the party as a step towards "active politics", given that she had been raised in a family that believed in social awareness and strong political ideals. She said during the press meet held in Mumbai, "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." 

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Urmila has been in several successful films such as Rangeela, Daud, Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya but had been on a sabbatical of sorts since her onscreen outing in 2014 Marathi movie Ajoba. She tied the knot in 2016 to Kashmiri model-businessman Mir Mohsin Akhtar.

The couple met at Manish Malhotra’s niece, Riddhi’s wedding in 2014. As per a report in the Mumbai Mirror, he wooed her in filmi-style and pursued Urmila for over a year before she finally gave in. Later, the couple got married in a private ceremony on March 3, 2016, at Urmila’s residence in Mumbai. 

 

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In a statement, she said: “We kept it an exclusive wedding with just family and friends at the celebration. Since our families wanted the wedding to be a low-key affair. We mutually decided to keep it private. We seek your blessings on embarking this new journey of our lives.” It was a Hindu wedding, later followed by an intimate Nikaah ceremony.