A lot of film actors contested in Lok Sabha Elections 2019 and Urmila Matondkar was one of them, who contested from Mumbai North constituency. Unlike some other actors like Sunny Deol and Hema Malini who won from their respective seats, Matondkar had to face a huge defeat while contesting on a Congress ticket.
Matondkar lost to sitting BJP MP Kapil Shetty with a margin of over 4.64 lakh votes. This was the highest defeat margin among all the 48 constituencies of Maharashtra. Urmila, in her fresh entry into politics, could attract only 2,40,956 votes. On the other hand, Shetty got 7,05,555 votes as BJP whitewashed all the six Lok Sabha seats in Mumbai. This difference of 4,64,595 was the highest margin of votes between the winner and runner-up among all the constituencies of Maharashtra.
The Congress’ strategy to put a Bollywood star in Mumbai North seat miserably failed this time. In 2004, however, Congress had fielded Bollywood star Govinda from the seat and managed a victory as the actor defeated five time sitting BJP MP Ram Naik. The defeat of longest-serving petroleum minister of India took the nation by surprise. Govinda left politics later in 2009 and started concentrating on his film career instead.
This time Congress again tried to use the same tactic but failed due to the prevalent ‘Modi wave’ in the country during Lok Sabha Elections. Urmila accepted her defeat and called it a humble beginning into politics. Over his victory, Gopal Shetty said that development is the reason why people voted for him in spite of a celebrity in opposition.
