Over eight months after he was elected a Member of Parliament, actor-turned-rookie-politician Sunny Deol made his first appearance in his constituency on Sunday for an official meeting.
Sunny has been 'missing in action' ever since he won his maiden election on a BJP ticket in May last year.
Some time ago, there were posters put up in Gurdaspur in a lookout notice for the 'missing MP' Sunny Deol owing to his prolonged absence from the constituency.
The poster episode may have been a ploy by BJP’s adversaries, yet Sunny has often drawn flak for arguably not devoting enough time among his constituents.
On Sunday, Sunny made his first appearance in Gurdaspur to attend an official meeting to review ongoing development works in the area.
Newspersons were barred from the meeting.
Soon after he became an MP, Sunny appointed his representative to 'look after his constituency'.
The move invited strong retaliatory reactions with Opposition parties and people criticizing the greenhorn MP for 'outsourcing' by proxy works of his constituency to a representative.
Sunny had later issued a clarification through social media that his priority was the people of his area and that he would do all that is needed to ensure the development of the constituency.
Sources said, while Sunday appearance was Sunny’s maiden visit for an official meeting, he may have otherwise visited Gurdaspur about seven times ever since he was elected the MP.
Gurdaspur seat is one of the three seats contested by the BJP in alliance with the Akali Dal in Punjab as part of the seat-sharing arrangement in which the Akali’s contest 7 of the 10 total Lok Sabha seats.
The seat from Gurdaspur was earlier represented by late actor Vinod Khanna who won the seat thrice as an MP.
The expectation of the people is more from Sunny given that Vinod Khanna was acclaimed for carrying out enormous development in the constituency.
Khanna also actively engaged with the people of Gurdaspur, something which Sunny has not managed to achieve. Sunny had defeated Congress president Sunil Jakhar by a margin of over 80,000 votes.