Congress suffered another setback just a few months following the Lok Sabha elections when bollywood actress-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar resigned from Congress party. Her resignation comes just five months after she joined the party.
She cited petty politics as the reason for her resignation. Urmila said, “My political and social sensibilities refuse to allow vested interests in the party to use me as a mean to fight petty in-house politics instead of working on a bigger goal in Mumbai Congress.”
Urmila Matondkar said that the thought of resignation came to her when “no action” was taken on the issues raised by her in a letter dated May 16 to Mumbai Congress President Milind Deora.
Urmila Matondkar said in her statement, “To my utter dismay, the letter containing privileged and confidential communication was conveniently leaked to the media which according to me was an act of blatant betrayal. Needless to say, no one from the party was apologetic or even concerned towards me for the same despite my repeated protests.
Hitting out at the party, she alleged that the persons named in her letter for “shoddy” performance of the party in Mumbai North were rewarded with newer positions. “It is obvious that the key functionaries of the Mumbai Congress are either unable or not committed to bring about a change and transformation in the organisation for betterment of the party,” Urmila Matondkar said.
As soon as Urmila’s resignation was made public, Congress media panelist CR Keshavan tweeted, “People who have loyally stood by any party tend to get overlooked in favour of political tourists.”
People who have loyally stood by any party tend to get overlooked in favour of political tourists. https://t.co/dp1lZR4Bzk
— C.R.Kesavan ( Modi Ka Parivar ) (@crkesavan) September 10, 2019
However, this is not surprising, Congress has been practising the policy of ‘use and throw’ for quite some time, and who can know this better than Amitabh Bachchan.
Amitabh Bachchan had contested the 1984 Lok Sabha election on the suggestion of his “friend” and former Prime Minister of the country, Rajiv Gandhi and won the Allahabad Lok Sabha constituency by a huge margin of votes. However, when Bachchan’s name cropped up in the Bofors scam, instead of siding with him, the Congress left him to fend for himself, due to which Amitabh Bachchan was forced to retire from politics.
Similar treatment was meted out to famous actress and dancer Vyjayanthimala Bali. Vayjayantimala, who contested from South Madras Lok Sabha constituency on the suggestion of Rajiv Gandhi in 1984, not only won the election, rather, she saved his seat despite the Congress been voted out of power in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections. But she was never given a proper position by the party, and in 1998, when Sonia Gandhi controversially became Congress president, Vyjayantimala reported that the Congress was no more the same party, and thus she resigned in 1999.
In the greed for power, the Congress did not leave even actor Arun Govil, who played the character of Bhagwan Ram in Ramanand Sagar’s famous TV series ‘Ramayan’. Congress fiercely used him for the Lok Sabha elections from 1989 to 1991, and also fielded him as a Congress candidate in the 1991 Lok Sabha election.
Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan Shukla was also one of the victims of the Congress ‘use and throw’ policy. When Ravi Kishan, who contested from Jaunpur for the Congress in 2014, lost the election, the Congress sidelined him like Arun Govil. But as soon as he joined the BJP, contrary to the expectations of everyone in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he brought back the lost stronghold of Gorakhpur to the BJP.
In such a situation, Urmila Matondkar’s resignation has once again proved that the Congress party doesn’t have any respect for the party workers.