Over a week after actor Sunny Deol joined the BJP, his 83-year-old father and veteran actor Dharmendra - a former BJP leader himself claimed that while his family was not very well versed in politics, patriotism ran in their blood.

"See the work that I did in Bikaner. Sunny will also serve the nation," Dharmendra, who had contested the 2004 national election on a BJP ticket from Bikaner and won told news agency ANI. Dharmendra had

Sunny Deol will contest the Lok Sabha Election from Punjab's Gurdaspur. Like his father, he said "Look, I do not know much about politics but I am a patriot," in a rally after filing his nomination in Gurdaspur on Monday.

The younger Deol is the third in his family to enter politics after his father and stepmother, Hema Malini who is a sitting BJP lawmaker and is currently seeking re-election from UP’s Mathura.

Sunny Deol had mentioned his father when he joined the party saying, "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."

 

Sunny Deol is contesting against Congress candidate and sitting MP Sunil Jhakhar, who is also the president of the grand old party in Punjab.

In his short time in politics, the 62-year-old actor has already found himself in a controversy. The Gurdaspur seat, a BJP stronghold, was represented by the late actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna in 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2014. However, after his death in 2017, there was speculation doing the rounds that his wife Kavita Khanna will get the party's nomination from the seat, but after the BJP announced Mr. Deol's nomination, Ms. Khanna made her reservations clear.

"The BJP and my Prime Minister have my support, but at the same time I have to insist that what has happened with me can absolutely not happen again," she said. Despite her protests, however, she clarified that she was not going to take advantage of the situation. "I want Gurdaspur to go to the Prime Minister's kitty," she had said.

Punjab will vote on May 19th in the last phase of the national election. Results will be out on May 23.