Congress candidate from Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat Sunil Jakhar Wednesday asked his political opponent and BJP nominee Sunny Deol to share his vision for the constituency, telling him that "politics is a serious business and not a time pass activity".
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Deol, a Jat Sikh, from Gurdaspur constituency and he will be locking horns with sitting MP Jakhar, Aam Aadmi Party's Peter Masih and Punjab Democratic Alliance's Lal Chand.
"He (Deol) should share his vision for Gurdaspur constituency. What will be his agenda for the people here? Voters would also like to know what has been his contribution to the society other than being in movies," Jakhar said.
Taking a dig at Deol's short speech in BJP's rally in Gurdaspur on Monday, Jakhar, who is also the state Congress chief said, "He did not give any speech and just uttered dialogues from his movie. I think he has failed to understand the people of Gurdaspur."
"Voters here want to know his viewpoints on this constituency. I think he has been misguided. He just read a script (on Monday). If he says he does not know much about politics then, he should have talked about Punjabiyat or touched upon Punjab issues," he added.
"Politics is not a time pass activity. This is a serious business which involves serving the people," said Jakhar further.
The MP invited the actor, who has won the national award for movies like 'Ghayal' and 'Damini', for a debate on national and state issues.
In his first political speech on Monday after taking the political plunge, Deol had called himself a "patriot" who did not know much about politics.
Deol had also reminded voters of the patriotic character he played in the film 'Gadar' and referred to his 'dhai kilo ka haath' from the 1993 blockbuster 'Damini'.
It is the second time that the BJP is playing the "celebrity card" by nominating an actor from Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat.
The saffron party had nominated Vinod Khanna from Gurdaspur parliamentary seat in 1998 and he had managed to unseat veteran Congress leader and five-time MP Sukhbuns Kaur Bhinder. Khanna represented the seat four times in 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2014.
Currently, the Gurdaspur constituency is represented by Congress MP Sunil Jakhar who won the seat in the 2017 bypoll, which was necessitated after Khanna's demise in April 2017.
Jakhar had defeated BJP candidate Swaran Salaria by a margin of 1,93,219 votes.
Punjab will vote on May 19 in the last phase of the ongoing general elections.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
