In the 2014 general election, the gutsy Smriti took on Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi in his pocket borough of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh and gave him tough competition. Though she lost, the actress-turned-politician, who was sworn in as a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament from Gujarat in 2011, is now set to bag an important ministry when Modi and his cabinet ministers take oath in the capital.
In her life, every decision she took turned into a stepping stone, taking her closer to stardom and politics.
In one of her interviews she was quoted as saying that she started earning after the 10th standard - the Delhi girl used to earn Rs.200 for promoting a beauty product. But determined to chart her own destiny Smriti, one of the three daughters of a conservative Punjabi-Bengali family, broke free of the norms and decided to try her luck in the glamour world.
She sent her application for the 1998 Miss India contest, which was won by Lymaraina D'Souza. She couldn't reach the finals of the contest but fate took her to Mumbai, the entertainment capital of the country, where she joined McDonald's Bandra outlet to support herself while auditioning for work in showbiz.
