Riteish Deshmukh, who has made his presence felt through his acting in several mainstream Bollywood movies is now gearing up to add another feather to his cap.The actor is all set to venture into full-time politics and will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha general elections from Latur, Maharashtra. He has joined the Congress party and will be contesting the elections on its ticket.

For the uninitiated, Riteish father, late Vilasrao Deshmukh was the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and his elder brother Amit Deshmukh represents the Latur City constituency in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.

Riteish, who is well-known for his comic timing in films such as Housefull franchise and Masti franchise, usually refrained from taking a political stand. But off-late, the actor had started retweeting a lot of tweets from the official handle of Congress part President Rahul Gandhi. Riteish, who comes from a political family is not new to the rigmarole of elections and recently he even helped his younger brother Dhiraj Deshmukh in his election campaign for Latur Legislative Council.

[caption id="attachment_62042" align="aligncenter" width="575"] Image Credit: Twitter[/caption]

Previously, Latur district was a stronghold for the Congress party but due to the Narendra Modi wave in 2014, the party lost the Lok Sabha seat. Now, Riteish is eyeing to win it back again for the party. Indian National Congress is aiming to project Riteish as the party’s candidate for the next elections since he is highly popular in Maharashtra as an actor as well as the son of Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Riteish has also tried his hand at production and has produced a number of Marathi films which have garnered huge acclaim as well has become a runaway hit. Riteish is married to fellow actor Genelia D’Souza and has two sons called Riaan and Rahyl.

RECOMMENDED READ: WHY GENELIA SIMPLY REFUSED TO SPEAK TO RITEISH!

The 2019 elections are almost a year away but the Indian National Congress is not taking things lightly and looks like have already started the campaign. This is not the first time that an actor has cashed on his popularity and taken the political route. Shatrughan Sinha, Amitabh Bachchan, late NT Rama Rao, Jaya Prada, Hema Malini, Dharmendra, late Vinod Khanna, Rajinikanth and many more have made their foray into the world of politics.