Bollywood actor Rishi Kapoor or Akshay Kumar may be Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s candidate for late Vinod Khanna’s Gurdaspur seat in the Lok Sabha. Khanna passed away after a prolonged illness last month. The BJP is apparently looking for a “right” candidate to replace the late actor.
According to news reports, since it is not a Rajya Sabha seat, the selected candidate will have to fight and win the seat. “It is not a Rajya Sabha ticket. Whoever stands must be able to win and that too after the Punjab Assembly election did not really go in BJP’s favour,” sources close to Deccan Chronicle said.
For now, the names of Rishi Kapoor who is known to be extremely vocal about his opinions and actor Akshay Kumar who has recently won a National award are doing rounds. “He has a clean image and has been doing a lot of patriotic movies in the recent past. He is a new age Mr Bharat,” the daily quoted a leader as saying.
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Meanwhile, it is being assumed that since Rishi Kapoor is extremely active on Twitter he might turn out to be good for the masses. Additionally, Rishi Kapoor never minces his words and has time and again expressed his opinion on a range of social as well as political issues. Akshay Kumar has also been very vocal every time there has been an attack on Indian soldiers. He had even urged the people to come out and contribute to the family of the martyrs through the newly launched Bharat Ke Veer website.
Vinod Khanna who was undergoing treatment at the Sir HN Reliance foundation hospital since March 31, passed away at the age of 70 on April 27 due to bladder Cancer. A four-time Lok Sabha MP from Gurdaspur, he has also served as a minister of state in Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government.
