Election 2019: ‘All I’m Asking For Is Time,’ Says Actress-Turned-Politician Urmila Matondkar
Mumbai North candidate Urmila Matondkar speaks on the challenges of being a political novice in a tough electoral battle.
Urmila Matondkar was renowned, until about four weeks ago, for her role as an aspiring actress in the 1995 Hindi blockbuster ‘Rangeela’.
Today, her aspirations have moved to politics, after she was named as Congress candidate for the general election from Mumbai North constituency. The actor-turned-politician has taken on the task of challenging incumbent MP Gopal Shetty.
The political novice has spent the last month interacting with voters and getting to know the people she hopes to represent in the Lok Sabha. Election for the six parliamentary seats of Mumbai will be held on April 29.
“All I’m asking for is time,” Urmila said in an interaction with BloombergQuint at a Congress office in suburban Mumbai. She knows that she faces a daunting task as the former parliamentarian Sanjay Nirupam lost to Shetty by a margin of over 4 lakh votes in 2014.
Urmila termed Shetty’s performance as a parliamentarian dismal, saying the self-proclaimed “garden king” hasn’t addressed the real issues that the nearly 10 lakh voters in the constituency face.
He calls himself a garden king. In a part of the city where water and electricity are not available, where everything might collapse on your head, should you be happy to be called a garden king?Urmila Matondkar, Congress candidate from Mumbai North
Matondkar has been drawing large crowds on the campaign trail, but is aware that the crowds may not turn into votes. She claims that she is not approaching voters as a ‘star’ and will continue to work in the area, no matter what the outcome of the election is.
It will be naive of me to think that everyone out on the streets will vote for me because they have smiled and waved at me.Urmila Matondkar, Congress candidate from Mumbai North
Watch the full interview here: