Italian actress Monica Belluci wants to meet India's Sonia Gandhi

Monica Bellucci

Italian actress Monica Bellucci wants to meet India's Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi to discuss a film on her life during a women's film festival in New Delhi this December.

US-based Indian director Jagmohan Mundra had asked Belluci to star in a film version of an unauthorised biography of the Italian-born Gandhi, but set the project aside this year after the Congress party objected, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported Saturday.

"We have written a letter to Gandhi seeking Monica's appointment with her. If that is granted, there is every possibility that the actress makes it to Delhi for three days from December 17," film festival director Shyamali Deb told PTI.

Bellucci, 38, has most recently starred in the film, "Napoleon and Me."

Gandhi, widow of assassinated prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, became the face of the country's famed political dynasty when she became president of the Congress party in 1998.

She was born in Italy but became an Indian citizen after her marriage.

The family includes the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, prime minister Indira Gandhi, assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. Her surname, which came from her Parsi husband, was the same as Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, but they were not related.

Gandhi, who will be 60 on December 9, won national praise after she refused to head of a coalition government in May 2004 when the Congress party defeated the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition.

The movie version of Sonia Gandhi's life would be based on "Sonia: A Biography" by Indian political journalist Rasheed Kidwai which details her romance with Rajiv and efforts to keep the Congress party together after her husband was assassinated by Tamil separatists in May 1991.