BJP fields Sunny Deol from Gurdaspur which was wrested by Congress after Vinod Khanna's demise

New Delhi, Apr 23: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday decided to field actor Sunny Deol, who joined the party this afternoon, from Punjab's Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat which was held by actor Vinod Khanna, who passed away in 2017, for a long time.

Gurdaspur seat went to by-poll in October 2017 after the demise of Vinod Khanna and the Congress wrested the seat from the BJP after around two decades. Gurdaspur once a Congress bastion, was held by Bollywood star and BJP leader Vinod Khanna for four terms until he died in 2017.

The BJP now want to snatch the seat back from Congress. The seat is currently held by Sunil Jakhar who won the bypoll in 2017 by defeating BJP's Swaran Salaria by a huge margin.

In another major development, sitting MP from Chandigarh Kirron Kher was renominated from the Union Territory. The party has nominated Som Prakash as its candidate from Hoshiarpur in Punjab in the place of Union Minister Vijay Sampla. With the announcement of these three candidates, the party has declared its nominees for 437 seats, the highest number of Lok Sabha constituencies it has contested so far.

Sunny Deol, 62, who has played the lead role in blockbusters such as 'Ghayal', 'Gadar' and 'Border' joined the BJP on Tuesday in the presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal.

The development came days after he met BJP president Amit Shah in Pune.

"The way my father (film star Dharmendra) was attached with Atalji, today I have come to join Modiji. Whatever I can do for this family (BJP), I will do it.... I won't talk, I will show you through my work," Deol said while addressing the media at the BJP office.

Deol is the second member of the family after his step mother Hema Malini, the BJP candidate renominated from Mathura, to be given ticket by the party in this election. His father Dharmendra was BJP MP from Bikaner in 2004.