A star-studded contest appears to be on the anvil in Amritsar with the saffron party planning to cast either Sunny Deol, Poonam Dhillon or Harbhajan Singh in the forthcoming political blockbuster, releasing on May 19.

The great political thriller may also star Congress Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Gurdaspur.

The names came up for discussion during the election panel meeting of the state BJP on Tuesday to decide on its candidates for the Lok Sabha elections held under the leadership of state party affairs’ in-charge Capt Abhimanyu. Punjab BJP president Shwet Malik, Union Minister Vijay Sampla, former state unit chiefs Ashwani Sharma, Kamal Sharma, Prof Rajinder Bhandari, among others were present in the meeting.

The BJP contests on three seats, out of total 13 in Punjab in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) which fields its candidates on the remaining 10 seats. The BJP contests on Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, and Gurdaspur seats.

Presently, BJP has just one MP in the Lok Sabha, Vijay Sampla from Hoshiarpur, who is also the Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment. Sampla, the former state unit chief who is the frontrunner for the seat, is facing challenge from his bête noire Som Parkash — party MLA from Phagwara.

The saffron brigade had won Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat in 2014. But after its sitting MP and former Union Minister Vinod Khanna’s death, the party lost the seat to Congress’ Sunil Jakhar in 2017 by-election.

As the Congress has reportedly decided to re-nominate Jakhar from Gurdaspur, another ticket aspirant and Gurdaspur’s former MP Partap Singh Bajwa appeared to have been left aggrieved.

Congress’ former State unit president, Bajwa was removed from the post and was replaced by Capt Amarinder Singh after the party’s poor performance in 2014 elections with the sitting Gurdaspur MP himself failing to secure his own seat.

Sharing close ties with the party’s national president Rahul Gandhi, he was later accommodated in the Rajya Sabha. The State unit president Sunil Jakhar was selected over him for Gurdaspur byelection who succeeded.

Now, he has again staked claims for the party ticket from his home constituency. But the party, it has been learnt, has finalised Jakhar as its candidate.

Bajwa, a fierce critic of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder, has all along been openly speaking against the Congress Government in the State. And sources in the state BJP unit maintained that he was in touch with the party and ready to give up “hand” and hold “lotus” in case he was given Gurdaspur ticket.

“He is not happy in the Congress and is vocal against the Government. He could be a strong candidate against Jakhar if talks materialise. He has expressed his willingness through our leader. But everything is in initial stages. We have to talk to the high command before taking any decision,” a senior BJP leader told The Pioneer requesting anonymity.

Other than Bajwa, names of Vinod Khanna’s wife Kavita Khanna, businessman-cum-politician Swarna Salaria, BJP’s former state president Ashwani Sharma, former Minister Master Mohan Lal, MLA Dinesh Babbu, Narinder Parmar and Jagdish Sahani were discussed.

After suffering a defeat by more than two lakh votes in 2014 elections, the saffron party is preparing to field a strong candidate for Amritsar seat, which witnessed a top-notch electoral fight between Capt Amarinder and BJP stalwart Arun Jaitley during previous general elections. BJP had also lost the seat in 2017 byelection.

A BJP leader said names of Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh, popularly known as Bhajji, Bollywood superstars Sunny Deol and Poonam Dhillon were considered for the party ticket from the holy city.

Besides, the names of Punjab JP president Shwet Malik, Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina who unsuccessfully contested 2017 byelection, BJP national secretary Tarun Chugh, and former Minister Anil Joshi was also in the reckoning.

The names would be “personally” handed over to the party high command which would take the final call.

“We have discussed candidates’ names for Lok Sabha elections. We have prepared a panel of names for three Lok Sabha seats and we will send it to the party high command and the party’s central parliamentary board will be finalise the name of the candidates,” said Malik after the meeting.