Will BJP's star power work in Punjab's border seat again?

Vishal Gulati

Gurdaspur, March 24 (IANS) Will BJP's star power in Punjab Lok Sabha elections on June 1 work again from this seat bordering Pakistan that is dominated by the Jat Sikhs? 

The BJP in 2019 fielded Bollywood actor Sunny Deol, who owes his roots to Punjab, from Gurdaspur, the seat represented four times by yesteryear actor Vinod Khanna, who died in April 2017 due to cancer.

Deol won his electoral debut by defeating Congress heavyweight and sitting MP Sunil Jakhar from the Gurdaspur constituency with a margin of over 80,000 votes in 2019.

Jakhar, currently the state BJP unit chief, had won the Lok Sabha bypoll by 193,219 votes in October 2017. The bypoll was necessitated by the demise of BJP sitting MP Vinod Khanna.

Deol's iconic "tareekh pe tareekh" may have captivated cinegoers but he did not address the House once during the five year term, as per reports.

Last month, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann took a jibe at Deol, saying "politics means serving and being available to people round the clock".

Son of veteran actor Dharmendra, Deol, does not have any direct connection with Gurdaspur city though his father hails from Sahnewal town near Punjab's industrial town Ludhiana. He is a Jat Sikh.

His father Dharmendra was elected from Bikaner as an MP in 2004, while his step mother Hema Malini is seeking third term from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh as a BJP candidate.

Deol entered the Hindi film industry with 'Betaab' in 1983 and his best hits include 'Border', 'Damini' and 'Gadar'.

Deol's unforgettable dialogue from 1990’s Hindi film 'Ghayal', 'Jab yeh dhai kilo ka haath kisi pe padta hai na, toh aadmi uthta nahi... utth jata hai' (When this hand weighing 2.5 kg is kept on some person, they don't get up, they go up (they will die) was quite hit during his campaigning in the 2019 polls.

Gurdaspur lies in the north of Punjab, sharing an international border with Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir. The area is not as developed as other areas in Punjab.

The Gurdaspur constituency, which has 15,95,284 voters, including 7,45,479 women, has nine assembly constituencies. It has a high number of serving and retired defence personnel.

BJP's Vinod Khanna represented the Gurdaspur constituency four times -- 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2014, while Congress candidate Sukhbuns Kaur Binder five times in a row -- 1980, 1984, 1989, 1991 and 1996.

Congress' Pratap Singh Bajwa was MP from Gurdaspur from 2009 to 2014. He is now sitting legislator and the Leader of Opposition.

The Gurdaspur constituency has seen two major militant attacks by Pakistan-backed militant outfits in the recent past.

In 2019, the BJP had an alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab. It contested three Lok Sabha seats (Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur), while the Akali Dal contested the remaining 10 seats.

At that time, Congress had won eight seats -- Amritsar, Faridkot, Anandpur Sahib, Jalandhar, Khadoor Sahib, Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib and Patiala seats -- while the Akali Dal won Bathinda and Ferozepur and the BJP Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur seats.

The Aam Aadmi Party won from Sangrur.

This time, there seems to be a four-cornered contest on this seat as AAP is contesting the elections alone in Punjab without an alliance with the opposition's INDIA bloc.

All four major parties are yet to declare their candidates.

The BJP is mulling to field either Kavita Khanna, wife of four-time ex-MP Vinod Khanna, or two-time Pathankot legislator Ashwani Sharma, or ex-MLA Fateh Jung Singh Bajwa, who is estranged brother of Congress leader Pratap Singh Bajwa.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at [email protected])

--IANS

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