RIP Sushma Swaraj….

August 7: BJP stalwart Sushma Swaraj born on 14 February 1952 Ambala Cantonment, Punjab breathed her last in New Delhi on 6 August 2019. Sushma Swaraj is married to Mr. Swaraj Kaushal. Her husband is senior advocate of the Supreme Court of India & a criminal lawyer.  He served as the Governor of Mizoram from the year 1990 to year 1993. He was the Member of Parliament from 1998-2004. Sushma Swaraj and Swaraj Kaushal have a daughter. Their daughter is a graduate from Oxford University & Barrister at law.

Although Swaraj’s association with the Sangh started at birth – she was born into a family of RSS members in Haryana in 1953 – her active brush with politics began as a student leader in 1970. She was closely associated with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of RSS and went on to join the Janata Party. In fact, Swaraj was an active participant in the anti-Emergency movement. Sushma Swaraj is an Advocate by profession. She started practicing as a Supreme Court lawyer after passing her LL.B. at Punjab University.

She became the country’s youngest cabinet minister at the mere age of 25 when she joined the Haryana government under Devi Lal. In the assembly elections that year, she had won the Ambala Cantonment seat with nearly 64 per cent votes, double that of her closest rival. She went on to serve two more terms in the legislative assembly, in 1977-82 and 1987-90. She was refereed as the best Speaker of Haryana successively for 3 years.

Sushma Swaraj was elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha for the first time in 1990 and remained there until she was elected to the 11th Lok Sabha from South Delhi constituency in 1996. In total she was elected Member of Parliament for the 7 time. She was the Union Cabinet Minister of Information & Broadcasting in the year 1996. She was re – elected to twelfth Lok Sabha for a second term in the year 1998. She had supplementary charge of Ministry of Telecommunications from March 19 to October 2, 1998. Sushma Swaraj was the Minister of External Affairs from 26 May 2014 – 30 May 2019.

Swaraj joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1984 and was eventually appointed secretary of the party. She held the position of the all India Secretary of the party for two years. She played a key role in strengthening the BJP across the country through the 1990s.

The former Minister of External Affairs notched up several firsts over her long political career, including being the country’s youngest-ever Cabinet Minister, the first woman Chief Minister of Delhi and the first woman spokesperson for any national political party. Swaraj made history once again when she became the first woman Leader of Opposition, replacing her mentor Lal Krishna Advani. She held this position till 2014. Swaraj bagged the prestigious External Affairs portfolio under the Modi government. She was the second woman to take charge of this ministry after Indira Gandhi. She became the first Indian to address the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting as the guest of honour. Sushma Swaraj was awarded the Best Parliamentarian award two times in 2008 & 2010.

Hours before her death, Ms Swaraj had tweeted congratulating Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the passage of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation bill in parliament. “She was happy about Article 370’s abrogation, I read her tweet when I got back home,” Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Hundreds of people, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and veteran party leader L K Advani, bid farewell to former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj as her mortal remains were consigned to flames at the Lodhi Road crematorium. Swaraj was given full state honours after which her body was cremated in the electric crematorium. Political leaders across party lines as well as people on social media expressed shock and grief at her sudden death.