NHAI ignores death traps on National highway- 54 NHAI officials meet Batala residents. Interestingly, a year later after he was snubbed by Bhinder, Khanna trounced her by 70,000 votes to make his parliamentary debut.
Had Bhinder shown some respect to one of the greatest actors of Indian cinema, ‘Dayavan’ would have never got angry. That is how Khanna jumped into the political arena. Six months later he was elevated as Minister of State for External Affairs. In July, 2002, when the actor was into his third term as an MP, he was singled out by PM Vajpayee for the post of Minister of State for Tourism.
His plea was turned down and instead he was told by the powers-that-be in the BJP that since he knew how to speak Punjabi, he had to slug it out from a Punjabi-speaking seat like Gurdaspur. He, however, wanted to contest from a seat from Mumbai. A year later, elections were announced and Khanna was Atal Behari Vajpayee's personal choice to contest from the Gurdaspur Parliamentary constituency. The actor was livid and took an oath then and there, standing on the railway platform, that one day he too will become a union minister. Khanna asked her to adjust him and his wife in the coupe. The railways, following protocol, had booked a coupe for her as she was entitled to one in her capacity as a union minister. Incidentally, Bhinder, too, was travelling in the same train. Khanna actually was banking on his reputation as a mega-star to get a seat for himself and his wife but he was left fuming when he failed to get a berth. At that time Pathankot was not on the map of India hence the Khannas were left with no choice but to travel by the Jammu mail to New Delhi.
The actor was launching his younger son Akhshaye Khanna in the movie. The couple was on their way back to New Delhi en-route to Mumbai after supervising a 40 day long shooting schedule of Khanna's production Himalay Putra. Salhotra recounted that in the fall of 1997, Vinod Khanna and his wife Kavita Khanna were at the Pathankot city railway station. His story is corroborated by several others. One such resident is Neeraj Salhotra, a former chairman of the Gurdaspur Improvement Trust. However, there are many who remember why and how he entered the politics and rose to the position of the Minister of State for External Affairs. Not many remember the innumerable projects brought to the area by four-time former MP and film icon Vinod Khanna.