MUMBAI: The Bollywood actress-turned-politician, Urmila Matondkar, who quit Congress last week barely five months after joining it, dismissed speculations of her joining the Shiv Sena ahead of state assembly elections on Tuesday.
“I am not joining any other party... request media not to share whatever they hear. It is unfair towards me to say the least, and also not appropriate towards any party,” she said in a statement released here.
The statement from Matondkar came on the backdrop of intense speculations about her joining the Shiv Sena following a call she received from Uddhav Thackeray's close aide Milind Narvekar who is also the party secretary.
Matondkar, who relied primarily on her ‘Marathi Girl’ image while unsuccessfully contesting Lok Sabha election from the Mumbai North Constituency as Congress candidate against BJP’s Gopal Shetty earlier this year, shares a good rapport with the Shiv Sena leadership.
“The call made to her was nothing else, but just a courtesy call. No politics needs to be attached to it,” Narvekar said while refuting the speculations.
Though the BJP and the Shiv Sena have time and again made it clear that their alliance for Maharashtra assembly elections has already been decided, the seat-sharing pact is yet to be finalised. Both the parties have conducted preliminary surveys of party apparatus in all the 288 constituencies in the state. Some of the leaders have even indicated that the parties might even contest separately.
If the seat sharing pact fails to take off, the Shiv Sena would be in need of a good Marathi face to appeal electorate. Urmila was contacted with this intension, party insiders have said.