Gurdaspur sees a rare contest between two outsiders: Sunny Deol and Sunil Jakhar

For the first time in recent memory, the direct contest in Punjab’s Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency is between two candidates who are both from outside the seat.

The two candidates

Congress candidate and Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar belongs to Abohar in Fazilka, which falls in the Ferozepur parliamentary constituency. The BJP’s candidate, Bollywood actor Sunny Deol, has a Punjab link only through his roots: his father Dharmendra hails from Sahnewal in Ludhiana district.

Jakhar won the seat in the 2017 by-election held after the death of actor-politician Vinod Khanna, and kept in touch with people in the constituency during his tenure. Even so, rivals such as the Aam Aadmi Party are raising the insider-versus-outsider question with voters.

Local voices

Gurbhajan Gill, a Punjabi writer from Gurdaspur district, wrote on social media that the BJP had let down the people of the area by fielding an outsider. He noted that Khanna, also an outsider, had won the seat several times, that people were still waiting for a local face to represent them, and that the Congress had fielded Jakhar in the by-election.

A history of outsiders

The Congress’s Sukhbuns Kaur Bhinder won the seat several times between 1980 and 1997. To halt her run, the BJP turned to a celebrity, Vinod Khanna, a Punjabi by origin but an outsider to Gurdaspur. The experiment succeeded: Khanna, a Hindu face, won the seat repeatedly even though five of the nine Assembly segments in the constituency are dominated by Jat Sikhs.

No local candidate challenged Khanna until 2009, when Congress leader Partap Bajwa defeated him by 8,342 votes. Khanna reversed that result in 2014, defeating Bajwa.

See also: constituencies, Indian National Congress

Originally published on 27 April 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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