Ankita Lokhande's stunning transformation after her breakup with Sushant

Lokhande was born on 19 December 1984 in Marathi family of Indore to Shashikant (a news reporter) and Vandana Pandis (a teacher) and has a brother Arpa. After graduating she moved to Mumbai in 2005 to pursue her passion for acting.

After a participation in Idea Zee Cinestars (2006–07), Lokhande bagged the lead role of Archana in Ekta Kapoor's daily soap Pavitra Rishta (2009–14). Her performance and chemistry with Rajput received various television awards, making her a household name.

Along with Pavitra Rishta, Lokhande contested on Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa season 4 in 2011. That year, she also participated in Comedy Circus. In 2013, she appeared in episodic of Kapoor's mini-series Ek Thhi Naayka as Pragya.

After a two year gap from acting and then her split up with Rajput, there were reports that Lokhande is set to debut into big screen with a role in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's period drama Padmaavat (2018)

The following year, speculations were spread that she has been signed for Girish Malik's film Torbaaz along with Sanjay Dutt. However, these rumours turned out to be untrue with Malik's statement that Lokhande isn't a part of it.

In 2018, she finally announced that she will plunge into films with the role of Jhalkaribai, a warrior in Krish and Kangana Ranaut's joint directorial venture Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, an epic drama based on the life of Rani Lakshmi Bai that got theatrical premiere during the eve of Republic day 2019 and did quite very well at box-office and became her first commercial success.

Lokhande next starred in Sajid Nadiadwala's action packed production Baaghi 3 (2020)–third part of Baaghi trilogy–alongside Tiger Shroff, Shraddha Kapoor and Riteish Deshmukh, wherein she portrayed Kapoor's elder sister married to Deshmukh's character.

The film was released prior to the shut down of theatres owing to Coronavirus pandemic in India, which affected the box office performance.