Sushma Swaraj: A leader who aced all jobs with grace

Youngest Cabinet Minister.

First woman Chief Minister of Delhi.

First woman spokesperson for a national political party in the country.

First full-time woman External Affairs Minister.

Sushma Swaraj was all of the above and so much more.

As the country mourns the demise of the BJP stalwart, a quick glance at her illustrious political career highlights a legacy that very few can boast.

Even in her final stint as the External Affairs Minister in the previous Modi cabinet, Swaraj was widely known for being accessible and bringing diplomacy closer to the layman with her powerful tool -- her Twitter handle. At 13.1 million followers, Swaraj still remains the most followed woman political leader in India.

Her time at the helm of the Ministry of External Affairs saw a bunch of remarkable events and highs - passport infrastructure expansion, augmented engagement with the East, India approaching the International Court of Justice challenging a Pakistani military court's death sentence to Kulbhushan Jadhav, strategic handling of the 2017 Doklam standoff between India and China, among other things. She was only the second woman to hold the External Affairs portfolio after Indira Gandhi, who briefly held it while she was the Prime Minister. The first one to hold it full time.

RIP Sushma Swaraj | Follow live updates here

A fierce voice representing India on various international platforms, the saree-clad, big red bindi-sporting Swaraj's 2018 speech at the United Nations General Assembly was hailed as a fitting diplomatic offensive against Pakistan. The speech was a scathing response to events related to the 2016 Pathankot attack, the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, Pakistan and its terror mongering, to name a few.

Foreign ministers and officials of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) pose for a group photo before a meeting
at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing, China in April 2018. Madoka Ikegami/Pool via REUTERS

The journey to the top

A seven-time MP and a three-time MLA, Swaraj was a law graduate who practised in the Supreme Court in the early 1970s.

She started her political life with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the RSS' student wing in the 1970s, and later joined the BJP in early 1980s.

Swaraj also happens to be the youngest cabinet minister -- at 25. She was one of the cabinet ministers in Janata Party's government headed by Devi Lal in Haryana in 1977, after winning from Ambala Cantonment, also her hometown. She held the Labour and Employment portfolio. In 1979, at 27, she became the state president of the Janata Party.

Swaraj held the Education portfolio in the BJP–Lok Dal coalition government in Haryana between 1987 and 1990.

She was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1990, her official entry into national politics. Swaraj also played a key role in strengthening the BJP across the country in the 1990s.

A protégé of veteran BJP leader L K Advani, 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.

She was the first woman Chief Minister of Delhi -- in 1998, albeit for a short period -- from October 13 to December 3, 1998.

Always eager to take on a challenge, Swaraj, fielded by the BJP, contested against the then Congress President Sonia Gandhi in Bellary in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls. She lost by a narrow margin of around 56,000 votes.

A recipient of the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award, Swaraj was also the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha between 2009 and 2014.

Telecommunications, Health and Family Welfare, and Parliamentary Affairs were some of the portfolios that Swaraj held in the Union Cabinet.

Early this year, Swaraj was invited to attend the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Meet in Abu Dhabi as the guest of honour. She became the first Indian to participate in the plenary session of the OIC since its inception in 1969.

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

She was married to Swaraj Kaushal, a designated senior advocate of the Supreme Court of India who served as Governor of Mizoram from 1990 to 1993. Kaushal was also a Member of Parliament from 1998 to 2004.

With inputs from PTI.