An affable leader, an able administrator and an impressive orator — Sushma Swaraj was one of the most prominent faces of the BJP who immensely contributed to party’s growth and never shied away from taking challenges.
n affable leader, an able administrator and an impressive orator — Sushma Swaraj was one of the most prominent faces of the BJP who immensely contributed to party’s growth and never shied away from taking challenges.
Her rise in politics coincided in some ways with the growth of BJP as a party. She left a mark in roles as a union minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, as leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014, and as External Affairs Minister in the first term of Narendra Modi government.
A four-time member of Lok Sabha and three-time of Rajya Sabha, she did not contest in 2019 Lok Sabha elections citing her bad health.
The 67-year-old accepted tough challenges which helped the BJP break new grounds. She contested the 1999 Lok Sabha election from Bellary in Karnataka against then Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
She lost the contest in the Congress stronghold by a relatively small margin of about 55,000 votes but left a mark with her felicity of language and ability to connect with voters.
As the External Affairs Minister from 2014-19, Sushma Swaraj helped implement the foreign policy of Narendra Modi government which witnessed an expansion in engagement with the Indian diaspora across the world.
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