Sushma Swaraj was an Indian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as the Minister of External Affairs of India in the first Narendra Modi government from 2014 to 2019.
50 Facts About Sushma Swaraj
2.
Sushma Swaraj is only the second person to complete the 5-year term as Minister of External Affairs after Jawaharlal Nehru.
3.
Sushma Swaraj was elected seven times as a Member of Parliament and three times as a Member of the Legislative Assembly.
4.
Sushma Swaraj served as 5th Chief Minister of Delhi for a short duration in 1998 and became the first female Chief Minister of Delhi.
5.
Sushma Swaraj became the Minister of External Affairs in the union cabinet on 26 May 2014.
6.
Sushma Swaraj was called India's "best-loved politician" by the US daily Wall Street Journal.
7.
Sushma Swaraj decided not to contest the 2019 Indian general election due to health reasons as she was recovering from a kidney transplant and needed to "save herself from dust and stay safe from infection" and hence did not join the second Modi Ministry in 2019.
8.
Sushma Swaraj was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award posthumously in 2020 in the field of Public Affairs.
9.
Sushma Swaraj was born on 14 February 1952 at Ambala Cantonment, Haryana, into a Punjabi Hindu Brahmin family, to Hardev Sharma and Shrimati Laxmi Devi.
10.
Sushma Swaraj's father was a prominent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh member.
11.
Sushma Swaraj's parents hailed from the Dharampura area of Lahore, Pakistan.
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Sushma Swaraj was educated at Sanatan Dharma College in Ambala Cantonment and earned a bachelor's degree with majors in Sanskrit and Political Science.
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In 1973, Sushma Swaraj started practice as an advocate in the Supreme Court of India.
14.
Sushma Swaraj began her political career with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in the 1970s.
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Sushma Swaraj actively participated in Jayaprakash Narayan's Total Revolution Movement.
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Sushma Swaraj was a member of the Haryana Legislative Assembly from 1977 to 1982, winning the Ambala Cantonment assembly seat at the age of 25; and then, again from 1987 to 1990.
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Sushma Swaraj held the Labour and Employment ministries from 1977 to 1979.
18.
Sushma Swaraj became State President of the Janata Party in 1979, at the age of 27.
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Sushma Swaraj was elected to the 11th Lok Sabha from the South Delhi constituency in the April 1996 elections.
20.
Sushma Swaraj served as Union Cabinet Minister for Information and Broadcasting during the 13-day government of PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1996.
21.
Sushma Swaraj became the first female Chief Minister of Delhi.
22.
Sushma Swaraj was re-elected to the 12th Lok Sabha from South Delhi Parliamentary constituency for a second term, in March 1998.
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Sushma Swaraj started community radio at universities and other institutions.
24.
Sushma Swaraj secured 358,000 votes in just 12 days of her election campaign.
25.
Sushma Swaraj returned to Parliament in April 2000 as a Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh.
26.
Sushma Swaraj was reallocated to Uttrakhand when the new state was carved out of Uttar Pradesh on 9 November 2000.
27.
Sushma Swaraj was inducted into the Union Cabinet as Minister for Information and Broadcasting, a position she held from September 2000 until January 2003.
28.
Sushma Swaraj was Minister of Health, Family Welfare and Parliamentary Affairs from January 2003 until May 2004, when the National Democratic Alliance Government lost the general election.
29.
Sushma Swaraj was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha for a third term in April 2006 from Madhya Pradesh state.
30.
Sushma Swaraj served as the Deputy leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha until April 2009.
31.
Sushma Swaraj won the 2009 election for the 15th Lok Sabha from the Vidisha Lok Sabha constituency in Madhya Pradesh by the highest margin of over 400,000 votes.
32.
Sushma Swaraj became Leader of Opposition in the 15th Lok Sabha in place of Lal Krishna Advani on 21 December 2009, and retained this position until May 2014 when, in the 2014 Indian general election, her party won a major victory.
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Sushma Swaraj had served as the Indian Minister of External Affairs under Prime Minister Narendra Modi from May 2014 to May 2019.
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Sushma Swaraj was responsible for implementing the foreign policy of Narendra Modi.
35.
Sushma Swaraj was only the second woman to hold this position after Indira Gandhi.
36.
However, some people mentioned this incident as Sushma Swaraj helping Lalit Modi in the travel visa process.
37.
Sushma Swaraj was heavily criticised in 2014 when she urged Prime Minister Modi to declare the Bhagavad Gita as the national book of India.
38.
Sushma Swaraj was the first female Spokesperson of a national political party in India.
39.
Sushma Swaraj has many firsts to her credit as BJP's first female Chief Minister, Union Cabinet Minister, general secretary, Spokesperson, Leader of Opposition and Minister of External Affairs.
40.
Sushma Swaraj was the second female chief minister after Tamil Nadu's V N Janaki who did not the member of the legislature.
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Sushma Swaraj is the Indian Parliament's first and the only female MP honoured with the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award.
42.
Sushma Swaraj has contested 11 direct elections from four states.
43.
Sushma Swaraj has served as the President of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in Haryana for four years.
44.
In February 2016, during the International Roma Conference, then Indian Minister of External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj stated that the people of the Roma community were children of India.
45.
On 19 February 2019 Sushma Swaraj accepted the prestigious Grand Cross of Order of Civil Merit, which was conferred by the Spanish government in recognition of India's support in evacuating its citizens from Nepal during the earthquake in 2015.
46.
Sushma Swaraj was a member of parliament from 1998 to 2004.
47.
Sushma Swaraj's sister Vandana Sharma is an associate professor of political science in a government college for girls in Haryana.
48.
Sushma Swaraj's brother Dr Gulshan Sharma is an Ayurveda doctor based in Ambala.
49.
On 6 August 2019, Sushma Swaraj reportedly suffered a heart attack in the evening after which she was rushed to AIIMS New Delhi, where she later died of a cardiac arrest.
50.
Sushma Swaraj was cremated the next day with full state honours at the Lodhi crematorium in Delhi.