Sunny Deol wins from Gurdaspur, says will work hard for people

Actor-turned-politician and BJP candidate from Gurdaspur, Sunny Deol scored a thumping win from his parliamentary constituency on Thursday.

Deol defeated his nearest candidate Sunil Jakhar by 82,459 votes.

After the announcement of his victory, Deol said, "I am very thankful to all. I will work for the betterment of people. Everyone has supported me a lot and I hope I will keep getting this support."

This is the first time that actor Sunny Deol contested elections. He joined the BJP party on April 23, this year. Deol is contesting from Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency and early numbers indicated that he has a strong lead over Congress' Sunil Jakhar, sitting MP.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP had won this seat after fielding actor Vinod Khanna. Khanna passed away in April 2017. Later on, the seat went to Congress' Sunil Kumar Jakhar after by-election. The party has fielded Jakhar again from this seat.

Deol is the third member of his family to join politics. Earlier in 2004, his father Dharmendra had also represented BJP from Bikaner Lok Sabha constituency and won the seat. Dharmendra's wife Hema Malini is a member of the BJP and sitting MP from Mathura.

After the initial trends suggested Deol's lead, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh expressed shock and disappointment over trailing of his party's candidate and asserted that people have given preference to an actor over an experienced politician.

As per the latest trends, the ruling BJP is storming back to power with a comfortable majority on its own for the second consecutive time and is set to cross the 300-mark along with its allies in the Lok Sabha.

The BJP whose campaign was spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on muscular nationalism and a strident anti-Congress plank has won 182 seats and is leading in 121 other seats, therefore taking the total count much more than the halfway mark of 272 in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

The Lok Sabha polls that commenced on April 11 and wrapped up on May 19, saw approximately 900 million voters exercising their franchise and deciding the fate of 7,928 candidates across 542 seats in the country. Out of those candidates, 724 were women and four were transgenders.