Will Urmila Matondkar succeed in reclaiming Mumbai North for Congress?

On April 23, at 9am, rush-hour traffic comes to a standstill near Anand Nagar in Dahisar East, north Mumbai. Hundreds have gathered to catch a glimpse of Urmila Matondkar—the Bollywood star of the 1990s and the Congress candidate from Mumbai North for the Lok Sabha elections.

Dressed in a pastel-green kurti and white palazzo pants, the 45-year-old Matondkar stands inside her open mini-van, smiling and waving to admirers, and handing out sunflowers and marigolds to women and children.

Notably, every time she steps out of the van to pose for selfies with a tricolour scarf around her neck, she insists that she was not there as an actor, but as a Congress representative.

“I am anything but naive,” she says, trying hard to rub off the red tika a well-wisher had applied on her forehead. “I know that these people are not here for my politics, [but for] the actress. But it is a good starting point, right?”

Since her last starring role in Bollywood, almost a decade ago, Matondkar had been ensconced in her “ultra-luxurious life with seven dogs and a wonderful husband”, away from the public eye. She chose to enter politics, with “nerves of steel”, because it seemed the only logical thing to do in order to get rid of a “fascist government that shows zero tolerance for criticism, diversity and freedom of speech”.

And, in doing so, she and her family are giving up their privacy, says Mohsin Akhtar, her husband and an equal part of her campaign. He then takes a call, and demands that Gopal Shetty—the current Mumbai North MP—come for a live debate with Matondkar. “We want to talk to him face-to-face, but he is not coming,” he says.

The constituency will vote on April 29, before which Matondkar has to convince voters that she will not pull a Govinda. The veteran actor had won the seat on a Congress ticket in 2004, but had deserted it in 2008 to concentrate on his acting career.

Moreover, as a newbie, Matondkar would find it difficult to woo the loyal Gujarati-Marwari voter base of the BJP, especially in the Charkop region of Kandivali. Sonal Joshi, a resident of Charkop Sector 2, through which Matondkar's rath passes, says she will never vote for a Congress candidate, and especially not for a novice. “We have everything we want here,” says the 52-year-old. “Although we do not get to see the BJP MP either, we are quite happy with the way it is going.”

Over the years, the BJP has done well in Mumbai North. Ram Naik, the current governor of Uttar Pradesh, held the constituency for five terms. Then, after a short period, during which the Congress's Sanjay Nirupam and Govinda represented it, Gopal Shetty won it back for the BJP in 2014.

But Matondkar is confident. “I want my people to know that I am an honest candidate with a long-term commitment,” she says. “People want a change in the current government, which did not do anything in spite of winning a heavy mandate. Give me a chance and I will prove my mettle.”

As the campaign trail reaches Tiwari Chawl, a few Muslim men approach Matondkar with garlands, burst firecrackers and wish her the best. “You see that,” she says, pointing to the crowd in front of us. “This is such a melting pot that no caste arithmetic works here. I am fighting violence, hatred and intolerance. And I will bring change.”

The self-proclaimed Mumbaichi mulgi (Mumbai girl), who is fluent in Konkani and Malvani dialects, has been shooting videos in Marathi. “I am an Indian first, a Maharashtrian next and a Mumbaikar after that,” she says. “People have asked me why I did not join the Shiv Sena, given that it is a Marathi powerhouse. But the fact is that I am not working for the Marathi manoos alone. I am in this for the Keralite, the Tamilian, the Bihari, the Punjabi, the Gujarati and everyone else.”

Matondkar comes across as both calm and aggressive, in turns. “Nobody can train a novice on how to fight elections in three weeks,” she says. “I have had a good education and I keep myself abreast with the happenings around me. In fact, Mohsin and I have this super habit of discussing news every night at the dinner table. That has clearly helped.”

As we move on, and the sun starts to set, a group of women carrying a puja thali requests her to step down from the van so they could do aarti and pray for her victory. She refuses. “I am thirsty, have not sleep well, and am on antibiotics,” she says, and steps into the air-conditioned SUV that is trailing her van. The party workers carry on, hollering on the mikes, “Urmila tai aage badho, hum tumhare saath hain (sister Urmila move ahead, we are with you).”

Move ahead she might, but Matondkar has no concrete plans on how to take the constituency forward. She says she would ensure that “basic amenities such as water and housing are in place and the issues related to land encroachment, local trains and women's health are solved”. But she provides no details.

The conversation moves on to the Balakot airstrikes. “The Congress would have taken a similar step had it been in power,” she says. “Both the Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh governments had carried out similar strikes, maybe not at this level, but they did not politicise the entire situation like the BJP. It took the name of the Army and the 40 CRPF soldiers [martyred in the Pulwama attack] for political gains.”

Ironically, a few days after she started her campaign, Matondkar came under fire on Twitter for using the armed forces. She has used Air Force pilot Abhinandan Varthaman's photo during a roadside campaign, despite the Election Commission's directive against doing so.

Her SUV crawls on, and people outside fall over each other to peep in. Matondkar, however, remains oblivious to the attention. Something on her phone is bothering her. She zooms into a headline that a leading Marathi newspaper published that morning. It reads: 'CM Fadnavis comes to fight Urmila Matondkar'. She looks up from the phone and says, “The chief minister is personally coming for a rally for Gopal Shetty. That itself is a victory for me. Someone whom Shetty called a political zero turned out to be important enough to have a fight with the chief minister.”

She downs a whole bottle of water and adds, “They are targeting me because I am a woman, I am from the films, I have married a Muslim and I am a fighter. But I will not be bogged down. The only thing that will matter at the end is the victory of ideology. And that will be mine and the Congress's.”