BJP fields Sunny Deol from Punjab's Gurdaspur, Kirron Kher from Chandigarh

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday released a fresh list of three candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in Punjab. Punjab with 13 Lok Sabha seats goes to polls in a single phase.

The party has fielded actor-turned-politician Sunny Deol from Gurdaspur, the seat which is currently represented by Congress' Sunil Jakhar, who won from there in the by-polls held in 2017 following the death of Vinod Khanna. 

Deol, whose step-mother Hema Malini is also a BJP leader and is contesting from Mathura, recently joined the saffron party in the presence of defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and railway minister Piyush Goyal. 

Meanwhile, party's sitting MP, actor-turned-politician Kirron Kher will be contesting the Lok Sabha polls from the high-profile Chandigarh seat. 

Chandigarh usually goes with the trend at the national level, with voters electing candidate of the party that comes to power at the Centre, a feat recorded 11 times.

Despite facing fierce contest from Bansal and Aam Aadmi Party's Gul Panag in the last Lok Sabha polls, Kher won the seat by nearly 70,000 votes.

This time, the AAP has decided to field former Union minister Harmohan Dhawan, who recently switched over from the BJP.

The party has fielded former bureaucrat Som Prakash from Hoshiarpur Lok Sabha seat. 

On Monday, the party had announced cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir as its candidate from East Delhi and Meenakshi Lekhi from New Delhi.