Actor Sunny Deol joins BJP, to stand from Gurdaspur

The Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday announced that Bollywood actor Sunny Deol would be its its election candidate from Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
The party retained its sitting MP and actress Kirron Kher from Chandigarh.
The Gurdaspur seat was long held by late actor-turned-politician and minister Vinod Khanna.
Earlier in the day, Deol, son of veteran actor and former BJP MP Dharmendra, joined the BJP, showering praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The third from the family to join politics and the BJP, after Dharmendra and his wife Hema Malini, Deol is best known his roles in action and patriotic films including Gadar: Ek Prem Katha and Border.
“The way my father joined politics and this family during the time of Atalji, today I am here to join (Narendra) Modiji,” Deol said at a press conference.
“He (Modi) has done so much for the country. I want that he should remain the prime minister for the next five years because we want to develop (as a country). Our youth needs people like Modi. I will do whatever I can with all my heart for this family (BJP),” the actor said.
The 62-year-old actor was welcomed into the party by federal ministers Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman, days after Deol met BJP president Amit Shah.
Later in a tweet, he thanked the BJP leaders for the warm welcome.
In other election-related news, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur yesterday filed another set of nomination papers as a BJP candidate from Bhopal. She had earlier filed her papers on Monday, claiming that it was an auspicious moment.
Thakur arrived at the District Nomination Office flanked by Madhya Pradesh BJP chief Rakesh Singh and other party leaders in a road show after offering prayers at a temple.
Sitting BJP MP Alok Sanjar also filed his nomination from Bhopal later in the day and told reporters that he had done so on the party’s orders.
Sanjar’s candidature is being seen as a precautionary measure by the BJP if Thakur is prevented from contesting the elections.
The 49-year-old is an accused in the Malegaon blasts case in which six people died and around 100 were injured in 2006.
She is out on bail and her candidature has been challenged in court by the father of one of the men killed in the blast.