New Delhi:
Smriti Irani is still best known for being a trend-setter in the early days of what is called the saas-bahu genre of television soap opera. The screen image of the righteous daughter-in-law and the popularity it brought, has stood her in good stead in her second career as a young BJP politician who speaks her mind.
Ms Irani is also known now to be a key member of the A team of
Narendra Modi, the BJP's candidate for Prime Minister. At 38, she is a Rajya Sabha member and has now been picked by her party to take on Congress vice-president
Rahul Gandhi in the Gandhi family bastion of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.(
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Ms Irani is known to savour a challenge and has declared she will fight tough in Amethi, where the Aam Aadmi Party has already fielded one of its most vocal and combative leaders, Kumar Vishwas.
This is not the first time that the actor-turned politician has agreed to enter a tough contest. In 2004, when the BJP struggled to find a candidate against the Congress' Kapil Sibal in Chandni Chowk, a Muslim-dominated constituency in Delhi, Smriti offered to enter the fray. She contested and lost by a huge margin of about 80,000 votes.
But she brushed aside the setback and worked hard to earn a place among the front-ranking woman leaders in the BJP. In 2010, she was appointed president of Mahila Morcha, the BJP's women's wing. A little over a year later, she was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Mr Modi's Gujarat. When
Rajnath Singh became the BJP's president for the second time in January last year, he appointed Smriti as a vice president. In July, she was drafted as a member of the sub-committee formed to push Mr Modi's campaign through the traditional medium such as a plays and folk songs.
Once a model and even a Miss India contestant, Smriti got national recognition as the combative Tulsi Virani in the popular Ekta Kapoor-directed soap "Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu Thhi". She later played Sita, wife of Rama, in another TV series.
Smriti was inducted into the BJP by the late Pramod Mahajan in 2003. After his sudden death in May, 2006, she was mentored by former BJP president Nitin Gadkari.
A vociferous Modi supporter, Ms Irani was not always a fan. In 2004, she embarrassed her party when she demanded the resignation of Mr Modi as Gujarat chief minister over the 2002 riots in his state. HOurs later she issued a statement withdrawing her comments "unconditionally."
Smriti was born and brought up in Delhi. She is married to a Parsi businessman, Zubin Irani, and has three children.