Sunny Leone has found a supporter in Patidar quota leader Hardik Patel who today said she deserved respect, irrespective of her past, like any other Bollywood actress.

"Why can't we view Sunny Leone as an actress on screen independent of her old image? What's the problem if we look at her the way we look at actresses Nargis, Sridevi, or Madhuri Dixit. If our thinking is such that we still want to see Sunny Leone on the basis of her old image (as a porn star), then this country can never change," Patel said while responding to a query on his views on the actress during a press conference in Indore.