Mumbai: Actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondar, who joined the Congress in March this year, has quit the grand old party, blaming “petty in-house politics" for the move.
In her statement, Matondkar accused the party of overlooking the concerns she had raised in a letter to former Mumbai Congress president Milind Deora on May 16. “…the said letter containing privileged and confidential communication was conveniently leaked to the media which according to me was an act of blatant betrayal," she said.
The announcement by Matondkar, who had bagged 2,41,431 votes across six segments of the Mumbai North seat, came as a huge embarrassment for the Congress which is struggling to keep its flock together ahead of the Maharashtra assembly polls, slated to be held next month. Matondkar, who joined the Congress in March this year, was defeated by BJP stalwart Gopal Shetty in the polls.
Matondkar had earlier too expressed her displeasure with the leak of the letter, which exposed the internal war within Mumbai Congress. She had criticised the conduct of Sandesh Kondvilkar and Bhushan Patil, close associates of Sanjay Nirupam, a former Mumbai Congress president.
In the missive, she highlighted the failure of party leadership at local level on coordination, mobilising workers at grassroots, failure to provide proper resources to her by the two campaign coordinators. The actress-politician accused the duo of showing a "total lack of coordination, honesty and efficiency, ensuring a disastrous outcome". Matondkar said the first thought of resignation came to her mind when she realised that "no action" was being taken despite her "repeated efforts" on her letter dated May 16 addressed to the then Mumbai Congress president Milind Deora.
On Tuesday, Matondkar also hit out at some leaders of the party without naming them and said “some of the persons specifically named in my letter for the shoddy performance of INC in MUMBAI North were rewarded with newer positions instead of holding them accountable for their acts and omissions".
She added, “However, it is obvious that the key functionaries of Mumbai Congress are either unable or not committed to bring about a change and transformation in the organisation for betterment of the party."
The actor said her “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".
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