Actor-turned-politician Urmila Matondkar, who joined Shiv Sena last month, had received praises for donating INR 20 lakhs for the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund in September 2020. Urmila, like most other celebs, had contributed to the CM Relief Fund in the fight against COVID-19 in July 2020.
However, the reports suggest that the donation was made with the amount leftover from the INR 50 lakh given to her by the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) to fight the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
As per the Election Commission of India (ECI) norms, Matondkar had opened a joint account with Mumbai Congress general secretary Ashok Sutrale in Bank of Baroda’s Kandivali branch. The MPCC transferred INR 50 lakh into the account in April 2019. Matondkar used around INR 30 lakh and a balance of INR 20.4 lakh was in the account as on July 2020, said sources.
Meanwhile, defending herself, Matondkar said she had a go-ahead for the donation from state Congress chief Balasaheb Thorat.
As per the poll norms, there was a cap of INR 70 lakh on expenditure by each candidate for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The ECI hiked this cap by 10 per cent to INR 77 lakh in 2020.
Recently, Matondkar joined Shiv Sena in the presence of party president and CM Uddhav Thackeray, his wife Rashmi and other Sena leaders at Matoshree in December last year, a year after quitting the Congress party over petty inhouse politics.
The Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government has also recommended Matondkar’s name for nomination to the state legislative council from the governor’s quota along with other 11 members. The governor is yet to approve the list of 12 names.
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