Dr. Raj Kumar Verka is an Indian politician and a member of

Bhartiya Janta Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

. He is a Member of

Punjab Legislative Assembly The Punjab Legislative Assembly or the Punjab Vidhan Sabha is the unicameral legislature of the state of Punjab in India. The Sixteenth Punjab Legislative Assembly was constituted in March 2022. At present, it consists of 117 members, directl ...

(MLA) and represented Amritsar West as

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

member. He was also vice chairman of

National Commission for Scheduled Castes The National Commission for Scheduled Castes is an Indian constitutional body under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India established with a view to provide safeguards against the exploitation of Sc ...

Early life

He belongs to Valmiki Community.

Political career

Verka first successfully contested

from Verka constituency in 2002. from 2002 to 2004 he was chairman of Punjab Information technology corporation, further from 2004 to 2007 he was a Chief Parliamentary secretary. In 2012, he was elected from Amritsar West. Verka was one of the 42 INC MLAs who submitted their resignation in protest of a decision of the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

ruling Punjab's termination of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) water canal unconstitutional. He was elected for his third term in 2017 from Amritsar West Assembly constituency. He was the cabinet minister of the Congress party in the Punjab government from 2017 to 2022. He became Chairman of Punjab State Warehousing Corporation in 2018 being an MLA who received Cabinet Minister Status. He also became Cabinet Minister in the Punjab Government as Minister of Social Justice, Medical Education and Research, and New and Sustainable Resource of Energy. He joined Bhartiya Janta Party on 4 June 2022 along with Balbir Singh Sidhu,

Gurpreet Singh Kangar Gurpreet Singh Kangar is an Indian politician from Punjab, India. He was a member of Punjab Legislative Assembly and was also a minister in Second Amarinder Singh ministry. He had won the assembly election as a member of Indian National Congres ...

Sundar Sham Arora Sundar (Devanagari: सुन्दर) is an adjective signifying attractive, beautiful, good, handsome or nice. It has its origin in Sanskrit language. The word is also used as names of people by speakers of languages branching off of Indo-Aryan l ...

, and others at the party office in

Chandigarh Chandigarh () is a planned city in India. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Punjab to the west and the south, and by the state of Haryana to the east. It constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which al ...

Achievement & Awards

Dr. Rajkumar Verka was awarded the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa by the Governing body of Desh Bhagat University for his Exceptional Contribution in the field of Indian Political and Social work under the Faculty of Social Science.

National Commission for Schedule Castes

He held the post of Vice-Chairman of the

with the rank of Minister of State, Government of India for two terms.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Verka, Dr Raj Kumar Punjab, India MLAs 2002–2007 Punjab, India MLAs 2012–2017 Former members of Indian National Congress from Punjab People from Amritsar district Living people 1963 births Punjab, India MLAs 2017–2022 Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Punjab