BJP stalwart Sushma Swaraj: A powerful orator and people's minister

She started her political life with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the RSS' student wing, and later joined the BJP.

Business Standard : A powerful orator, an easily-accessible external affairs minister and a politician of many firsts, Sushma Swaraj was a loyal BJP soldier who was always ready to face a challenge.

Swaraj's attachment with the party ideology and principles was apparent even hours before she passed away as she tweeted to congratulate Prime Narendra Modi after the Centre's move to revoke the special status for Jammu and Kashmir.

"I was waiting to see this day in my lifetime," she said.

She passed away at AIIMS on Tuesday night after suffering a cardiac arrest. She was 67.

Swaraj, who had a kidney transplant in 2016, had opted out of fighting the Lok Sabha elections this year due to health reasons.

She was not part of the Modi government this time and S Jaishankar replaced her as the External Affairs Minister. She left behind a legacy of an easily-accessible minister who helped the diaspora in distress with her revolutionary social media outreach.

Several path-breaking measures such as the passport infrastructure expansion and enhanced engagement with the East were the highlights of her tenure as the external affairs minister.

She was only the second woman to hold the portfolio after Indira Gandhi, who briefly kept the external affairs ministry under her while being the prime minister.

Swaraj had many firsts to her credit such as being the youngest cabinet minister in the Haryana government, first woman chief minister of Delhi and the first woman spokesperson for a national political party in the country.

She started her political life with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the RSS' student wing, and later joined the BJP.

She was the Information and Broadcasting Minister in the 13-day Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1996 and got the Cabinet portfolio again after he led the BJP to power in 1998.