NEW DELHI, April 23 (Xinhua) -- Bollywood actor Sunny Deol Tuesday joined India's ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP).
"Like my father joined Atal Bihari Vajpayee, I have decided to go with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. I want PM Modi for the next five years," Deol said in his brief speech after joining the party in New Delhi.
His joining the BJP comes days after he met with party president Amit Shah.
Insiders in BJP say Deol is likely to be the BJP candidate from Gurdaspur in Punjab.
Deol plays a lead role in blockbuster 1997 movie "Border" based on an episode from the India-Pakistan war of 1971.
The 62-year-old Deol's last movie was "Mohalla Assi", shot in Modi's Varanasi constituency. His character was shown participating in “kar seva” (religious service) to Ayodhya, the birthplace of Hindu god Ram.
In 2014 Gurdaspur constituency was won by BJP's veteran actor Vinod Khanna, who died in 2017. However, in the by-election following Khanna's death, Congress party's Sunil Kumar Jakhar got elected.
Deol's father Dharmendra contested the 2004 general election from Rajasthan's Bikaner on a BJP ticket and won. Dharmendra's second wife Hema Malini is a BJP lawmaker and contesting again from Uttar Pradesh's Mathura.
Both Dharmendra and Hema Malini are veteran Bollywood actors.
In ongoing elections the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP is seeking to regain power under leadership of Modi. He is facing tough competition from Rahul Gandhi, the fourth generation scion of India's powerful Nehru-Gandhi clan and regional parties that have forged coalition in several states.
