Vijay Sampla

Vijay Sampla
Sampla, on behalf of readers of Dainik Savera Times, presents a cheque of ₹2 crore (US$300,000) to PM Narendra Modi for the PMNRF.
Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment
In office November 2014
Preceded by	Porika Naik Balram
Constituency	Hoshiarpur
Personal details
Born	(1961-07-06) 6 July 1961 (age 55) Village Sofi, Jalandhar district
Political party	Bharatiya Janata Party
Spouse(s)	Sudesh Sampla
Children	2
Residence	635A, Dilbagh Nagar Extension, Jalandhar, Punjab
Religion	Hinduism
As of December, 2014

Vijay Sampla (born 6 July 1961), Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment in India, is a member of parliament from Hoshiarpur (Lok Sabha constituency). He won the Indian general election, 2014 as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate.

Sampla, a 53-year-old leader from Punjab, has worked as farm hand, labourer and plumber.

Sampla, who studied till Class 10, joined the party in 1998. He is the second minister from Punjab after Akali Dal's Harsimrat Kaur Badal. His political journey began after he was elected the Sarpanch or head of his Sofi village (Jalandhar District). He has held several key posts in the BJP's Punjab unit.

When he was a 27-year-old bereaved dalit, Sampla was trying to find his feet against the oppressive landlords of Jalandhar's Sofi Pind. His brother and he were left to fend for themselves after their father's death and Sampla went off to Saudi Arabia in 1979 to work for a plumbing company.

On his swearing-in as BJP's first minister from Punjab in NDA-II, he says, "I often recall one incident that shaped my life. While I was in Saudi Arabian city of Damam, I was asked to clean human excreta and repair a bathroom. I was young and flatly refused to do the cleaning part while telling the building owner that I was a plumber. On my insistence, the man put on plastic gloves and cleaned the muck himself. It taught me the difference between oppression against dalits and the will to work", Sampla recalled.