Vijay Sampla

Vijay Sampla Biography

Vijay Sampla is an Indian politician belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a prominent figure of his party and also a parliamentarian who got elected to Lok Sabha in 2014 general elections from Hoshiarpur constituency. He was handpicked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to join his cabinet and he currently serves as Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment since November 2014. He also replaced Kamal Sharma as Punjab BJP chief in April 2016, after Kamal’s term was completed. The formal announcement was made by Amit Shah. Sampla is an immensely popular Dalit leader from Punjab’s Doaba belt.

Sampla had a humble beginning in politics. From a village sarpanch to a worker in a gulf country to parliament & cabinet, his political journey was nothing short of surprises. He is the second minister from Punjab after Akali Dal's Harsimrat Kaur Badal. He hails from Sofi Pind village of Jalander, Punjab and was born in 1961. He studied till class 10 only. He started his political career as Sarpanch of Sofi village in Jalandhar. He also worked as a plumber in Saudi Arabia before joining BJP in 1998. Since then he has been active in politics.

He faced a lot of struggles since younger days, as he belonged to a Dalit community, and faced humiliations from landlords and upper classes. Following his father’s death, he moved to Saudi Arabia to work in a plumping company. He had to face a lot of humiliations while working at city of Daman, a few instances being asked to clean human excreta and repair a bathroom. He was working as a plumber and had to convince the building owner too.

He has worked as farm hand, labourer, technician, electrician, plumber and many kinds of odd jobs during his younger days. Today, he is the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment. He has held several key posts in the BJP's Punjab unit before he joined centre as a minister and parliamentarian.

Published: October 04, 2018

Updated: October 04, 2018