Can Bollywood strongman Sunny Deol win Modi’s BJP votes along the Pakistan border?

The 62-year-old actor has made a name for himself portraying soldiers, spies and police officers in a series of hypermasculine blockbusters

But will his on-screen anti-Pakistan persona prove popular among those who live in neighbouring Punjab state?

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Sunny Deol in Gurdaspur. Photo: Sonia Sarkar

Published: 6:00pm, 13 May 2019Updated: 10:37am, 15 May 2019

Bollywood actor Sunny Deol is the perfect fit for the type of hypermasculine patriotism that India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) likes to project.

Heavy-set and barrel-chested with a rich baritone voice, the 62-year-old is known for portraying soldiers, spies and police officers on the silver screen.

Deol waves to voters from the sunroof of a car in Gurdaspur. Photo: Sonia Sarkar

Such associations made him the ideal candidate for the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as it looked for someone to represent it in the sensitive border constituency of Gurdaspur in northern Punjab state.

Bal Krishan Mittal, president of the BJP’s local branch, even described Deol as “a true deshbakht” – the Hindi word for patriot – in the vein of Modi himself.

The party appears to be hoping Deol can repeat the successes of Vinod Khanna, another Bollywood star who won Gurdaspur for the BJP four times before his death in 2017.

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