At 38, Smriti Irani is the youngest among all the women ministers in the Modi government. But this model-turned-actor-turned-politician is no less than those with decades of experience. Smriti was born in Delhi in a Punjabi-Bengali family and was married to Zubin Irani, a Zoroastrian in 2001.
Before pursuing modeling, she was a waitress and cleaner at McDonald’s. She was a finalist in the beauty pageant Femina Miss India in 1998 and made her debut in acting in early 2000 with TV series Aatish and Hum Hain Kal Aaj Kal Aur Kal. But her success on small screen came when she bagged the lead role of Tulsi Virani in Ekta Kapoor’s production Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. She holds the record of winning five consecutive Indian Television Academy Awards for Best Actress (Popular, four Indian Telly Awards, eight Star Parivaar Awards.) Smriti joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2003 and contested in the 14th Lok Sabha elections from the Chandni Chowk constituency in 2004. She lost against INC’s Kapil Sibal but was appointed the Vice-President of the Maharashtra Youth Wing. She has been nominated as executive member of the central committee for five times and was appointed as National Secretary of the party. She was appointed as All India President of the BJP’s women’s wing, BJP Mahila Morcha. She was sworn in as a Member of Parliament from Gujarat to the Rajya Sabha in 2011.
She had given a tough time to her opponent, INC Vice-President Rahul Gandhi in the 2014 general elections in Amethi and reduced the victory margin for him to a mere one lakh votes (one of the closest ever).
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