Tanvi Trivedi (BOMBAY TIMES; April 22, 2019)

After Bollywood’s action star Sunny Deol met BJP President Amit Shah briefly at Pune airport on Friday, speculations have been rife that he might contest elections on a BJP ticket from Amritsar. While the Deols’ spokesperson has reportedly confirmed that the meeting was arranged, he did not comment on whether Sunny will join the party.

It is a widely-known fact that the Deols are immensely popular in Punjab, since veteran actor Dharmendra’s roots are in Ludhiana, something that he speaks about with pride. Dharmendra also had a brief stint in politics when he contested Lok Sabha polls from Bikaner, Rajasthan, in 2004. Hence, it won’t come as a surprise if the party invites Sunny to contest from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat.

When BT met the actor last week, during the promotions of his upcoming film, Blank, he did not totally rule out the possibility of joining politics in the future.

When we pointedly asked him, if he had political ambition, he said, “Whether I will join politics or not is a difficult question to answer because you never know what happens in the future. If they invite me tomorrow, I don’t know if I will say yes or no. Life is quite uncertain and you don’t know where it will lead you. But I would like to say that whether I join politics or not, I will continue to be the same guy I have been in the past and do my duty and work with dignity. The outside world does not change me or affect my behaviour.”

On prodding him about how papa Dharmendra is campaigning for Hema Malini in Mathura currently and whether he would like to join the campaign, Sunny said, “I have campaigned in the past. Now, if this year I get an invitation to campaign, I have no idea if I will do that. Also, which party I support is something personal and I would like to keep it that way. In today’s world, you have to be very careful about what you comment. I respect every person’s decision in such matters, and I should also be given that privacy. I might say something today and tomorrow, if life leads me into something else, people will say, ‘Arre you said something different then and now, you are doing the opposite’. So, I will just wait and let destiny take its course of action.” Despite the rumours of him taking the plunge, there has been no confirmation from the actor whether or not he will be joining the party at the time of going to press.