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Updated: Mar 11, 2019 11:10 IST

It’s been a quick rise in politics for Vijay Sampla, the Member of Parliament from Hoshiarpur and Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment . The first-time BJP lawmaker is the second Union minister from Punjab after Shiromani Akali Dal’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

From Doaba, the Dalit heartland of Punjab, Sampla left for greener pastures after his father’s death and joined a plumbing company in Saudi Arabia with his brother. On his return home, Sampla became the sarpanch of Sofi village in Jalandhar.

His Dalit credentials stood him in good stead and in April 2016, he was also made the Punjab BJP chief by the saffron party to woo Dalit voters. Paradoxically, for a man with no political lineage and a modest start, he lost the presidency in two years, battling charges of “haughtiness and groupism”.

BJP infighting

Hoshiarpur is seen as a hotbed of internal rift within the BJP and he has a ready challenger in Phagwara MLA Som Parkash. “I am willing to contest the seat if the party asks me to. I lost the 2009 Lok Sabha elections only by 366 votes,” says Som Parkash.

The state assembly results have only dented Sampla’s prospects as the BJP tally came down to 3 from 12 and the party lost all seats in Doaba except Phagwara.

“All Sampla has done in five years is fuel groupism by giving MPLAD funds to rivals of SAD-BJP legislators, a major reason why he does not enjoy any equity with both the BJP and the Akali Dal MLAs in Hoshiarpur,” a BJP leader from the district said, requesting anonymity.

But Sampla says no one can accuse him of factionalism. “I have a good equation with everyone in the party. Anyone has a right to seek the party ticket and it cannot be seen as groupism,” he says.

However, he can no longer rest easy on the Dalit prop, too. He had earned the ire of certain organisations over his silence when some right wing groups clashed with them over naming a roundabout after Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar in Phagwara.

Scores on connectivity

There is a hint of irony here, too. For it is connectivity that Sampla scores on. He is credited for daily flights to Delhi taking off from the Adampur airport and the rail service from Jaijon-Doaba for Amritsar, for which he is locked in a credit war with Akali Dal’s Anandpur Sahib MP Prem Singh Chandumajra.

Soon after taking over as MP, Sampla flagged off the Delhi-Hoshiarpur train but the groundwork for this too was done by two former MPs, Avinash Rai Khanna and Santosh Chaudhary, a former Congress Union minister. He claims credit for four-laning the Hoshiarpur-Phagwara, Amritsar-Una and Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur roads.

The elevated road in Phagwara that was inaugurated recently was opposed by Som Parkash. The minister also facilitated the opening of a Bombay Stock Exchange training institute in Hoshiarpur and a passport office in Phagwara.

But his political rivals say he went missing as MP after becoming minister. “He even abandoned the village he adopted to develop as an adarsh gram (model village). Sampla has not cared to visit Budhawar village and it now wears an orphaned look,” says Dr Ravjot Singh, the candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and its district chief.

Sampla counters the criticism saying he has visited the village seven times and pumped in crores for its facelift.

Though traders and industrialists upset with demonetisation and rollout of goods and services tax (GST) had gone the Congress way in the assembly elections, they reckon that the Lok Sabha polls will be fought on bigger issues. “Hoshiarpur now has better road and air connectivity. Sampla played a key role in getting the civil aviation ministry’s nod for flights to Delhi from Adampur airport. Also, there is goodwill for Prime Minister Narendra Modi if not for the BJP or Sampla,” says local industrialist Arun Jain.

Fighting the ‘outsider’ tag

But farmers think otherwise, many of whom have taken to growing sugarcane. They accuse Sampla of making false promises. “While speaking from a stage at a party function, Sampla had said the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission report will be implemented. We got only four-hour power supply during the Akali-BJP rule, while we need at least six hours for cane,” says Sukhpal Singh Daffar, president, Ganna Sangarsh Committee, an organisation for cane growers.

“No development can be seen on the ground. Neither can the MP,” says Yamini Gomar, who is in the race for the ticket from the Congress after quitting the AAP. Congress MLA Raj Kumar Chabbewal and former minister Chaudhary are also contenders from here. The seat was a Congress bastion before it was reserved in 2009. Finally, Sampla’s fate will hang on who Congress fields from Hoshiarpur.

To shed the outsider tag, Sampla, who hails from Jalandhar, has made a house in Hoshiarpur. He rubbishes the tag of inaccessibility saying, “People of Hoshiarpur sent me to Delhi and I have been able to get things done for my area from here. I still spend four days every week in my constituency. Which MP does that, forget a minister?”