Sunny Deol Joins BJP, Could Contest From Punjab

New Delhi: Actor Sunny Deol on Tuesday joined the BJP at the party headquarters in New Delhi in the presence of Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal.

The development comes days after he met party president Amit Shah and he is likely to be the BJP’s candidate from Gurdaspur in Punjab, reports NDTV.

The actor said he was inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and will work closely with him and the party, like his father Dharmendra had when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister. “The way my father (film star Dharmendra) was attached with Atalji, today I have come to join Modiji,” Deol said. “Whatever I can do for this family (BJP), I will do it… I won’t talk, I will show you through my work,” the actor told the Indian Express.

Welcoming him into the party, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman referred to Deol’s 1997 movie Border, based on an episode from the India-Pakistan war of 1971. She said the film showed “how… nationalism and patriotism when portrayed beautifully on film can touch a cord with the people”.

In Deol’s last movie, Mohalla Assi, shot in Prime Minister Modi’s Varanasi constituency, his character is shown participating in kar seva (volunteer) for the Ram temple in Ayodhya.