Smriti Irani – Parliamentarian and former television actress of ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ fame

Smriti Irani is a very influential politician, parliamentarian, union minister and former model and actress, who shot to fame playing the lead role of Tulsi Virani in Ekta Kapoor’s production Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi on Star Plus. Before joining television in the early 2000s, she had a brief stint in modelling. She remained one of the top and most popular television actresses of 2000s, playing lead role in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Thodi Si Zameen Thoda Sa Aasmaan, Virrudh etc and supporting roles in a few before she completely switched over to national level politics. From a soap star to union minister, her professional life is nothing short of a fairy tale. In 2019 general elections she defeated sitting MP Rahul Gandhi at Amethi constituency, which is widely regarded by political experts as the most stunning win among 543 constituencies.   

A prominent female member of Bharatiya Janata Party, she currently serves as its vice-president since 2011, and remains a parliamentarian since then. She is an elected Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat. As a cabinet minister she has also held portfolios – Human Resource Development, Information and Broadcasting and Textiles in Narendra Modi’s cabinet. Though she has got in controversies regarding her educational qualification, she remains a close confident within the party with a lot of political followers.

Smriti Irani hails from New Delhi in 1976, born to Punjabi-Maharashtrian father and Bengali mother. She began her professional career as a model in the 1990s, and joined television industry in year 2000. She gained stardom through a series of soaps on Star Plus. She was first seen in Aatish and Hum Hain Kal Aaj Aur Kal, followed by Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi which she played the lead role throughout 2000–2008. Her role as a wife and daughter-in-law was widely accepted by TV viewers, and she became one of the most paid TV actresses.

She remained the most popular female star of Hindi television in the first half of 2000s, and also won Indian Television Academy Award for Best Actress Popular for 5 years successively, since its inception in 2001 – A record still to be broken. Zee TV’s Ramayan, Virrudh, Mere Apne, Teen Bahuraaniyaan etc are a few more shows in which she acted. As a television actress, she was last seen in Ek Thhi Naayka – a horror thriller mini-series, produced by Ekta Kapoor in 2013.

She has been an RSS worker since her school days and her political career began in 2003. In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, she unsuccessfully contested as a BJP candidate from Chandni Chowk constituency in Delhi. In 2010, Irani was appointed National Secretary of BJP and from there on she rose to fame as a political leader. In 2011 she joined Rajya Sabha for the first time. In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, she was defeated by Rahul Gandhi from Amethi.

Smriti Irani – Some interesting and less-known facts

During her early days in the show, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi

1. During her modelling days of 1990s, she appeared as a background dancer in the music video – Boliyan of “Saawan Mein Lag Gayi Aag” (1998) with Mika Singh.

2. She along with Gauri Pradhan Tejwani participated in Miss India 1998, though both couldn’t reach the finalists’ list.

3. She joined television during the toddler days of long running TV soaps, and played a magnificent role in popularizing them. Her lead role in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi also helped the show to earn the title of longest running Hindi TV soap.   

4. She played Sita in Zee TV’s Ramayan in 2001. Nitish Bhardwaj (of Mahabharat’s Krishna fame) played the role of Ram.

5. She produced a few TV shows such as Mere Apne, where she played female lead. Veteran actor Vinod Khanna also appeared in the show.

6. She along with Sakshi Tanwar hosted the show Yeh Hai Jalwa in 2008, Kuch… Diiil Se during 2001-2003 and Savdhaan India in 2012.

7. She is married to her childhood friend Zubin Irani in 2001, during her early days in television industry. He was a divorcee. The couple has two children, apart from a daughter from Zubin’s early marriage.

8. She has now certified that she has not completed her graduation, though she lied in the recent past.

9. Just a year after she joined Bharatiya Janata Party, while she was still busy with television she made a scathing attack on Narendra Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat at a store inauguration, surprising many. She criticised Modi for damaging the image of the party and of Gujarat, which faced a major defeat in 2004 general elections.

10. Irani and Rahul Gandhi came thrice face to face at Amethi. While Rahul Gandhi won 2009 and 2014 general elections, Irani stunned everyone by winning the constituency by a majority of 55,120 votes in 2019.