CHANDIGARH: For the three Lok Sabha seats on which the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is contesting in Punjab, it is eyeing Bollywood celebrities to sell it through in these parliamentary elections, the names of Bollywood actor Sunny Deol and actress Poonam Dhillon besides cricketer Harbhajan Singh are doing the rounds for the prestigious Amritsar Lok Sabha seat in the saffron party.
For the neighbouring Gurdaspur seat, the names of actor Akshay Khanna and his mother Kavita Khanna, both the kin of late actor and former MP Vinod Khanna, are in the reckoning.
Highly placed sources said that in the meeting of the fifteen member state BJP election committee on Tuesday evening many names were discussed and reportedly it recommended a dozen names to the party
high command.
For the prestigious Amritsar Lok Sabha seat names of Bollywood actor Sunny Deol and actress Poonam Dhillon, besides cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Union Minister of State Hardeep Singh Puri, senior BJP leader Rajinder Mohan Singh Chinna and former state minister Anil Joshi are being deliberated upon.
Interestingly Poonam who has studied in Chandigarh as he did her schooling from Carmel Convent had campaigned in Amritsar for Arun Jaitley in the 2014 parliamentary elections and she had joined the saffron party in 2004. "She is an old member and has shown interest," a senior leader said.
While for the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat the names of the late four-time MP Vinod Khanna’s actor son Akshaye Khanna and his mother Kavita Khanna (wife of Vinod Khanna), former Punjab BJP President Avinash Rai Khanna, former state minister Master Mohan Lal and state vice president Narinder Parmar have been shortlisted. It is learnt that Akshay not interested in joining politics at this stage of his carrier.
While on the Hoshiarpur seat which is reserved the sitting MP and Union Minister Vijay Sampla is not alone in the race this time, the other two names which have been shortlisted are of Phagwara MLA and former bureaucrat Som Parkash and former Chairman of Punjab Scheduled Caste Commission Rajesh Bagha.
It is learnt that the Punjab BJP President Shwait Malik along with party’s Punjab in-charge Capt Abhimanyu who is Haryana’s Finance Minister will discuss these probable names with party’s national President Amit Shah on Friday.