About:
- Born in Haryana in 1952, Sushma Swaraj went on to become a practicing lawyer in the Supreme Court. After being an active member of Jayaprakash Narayan's anti-Emergency movement, she became a member of the Bhartiya Janata Party.
- Sushma Swaraj was a seven-time Member of Parliament and a three-time MLA.
- She had many firsts to her credit such as being the youngest cabinet minister in the Haryana government in 1977, first woman Chief Minister of Delhi in 1998 and the first woman spokesperson for any national political party in the country.
- She was External Affairs Minister from 2014 to 2019, leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014, Minister for Information and Broadcasting in Vajpayee Government from 2000-2003.
Tenure as External Affairs Minister:
- She was the second Indian woman to become the External Affairs Minister, after former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
- She played a key role in resolving the Doklam standoff with China in 2017 and in India approaching the International Court of Justice (ICJ) challenging a Pakistani military court's death sentence to Kulbhushan Jadhav.
- Through her extensive use of Twitter, Sushma Swaraj had earned a reputation of easily-accessible External Affairs Minister. She took a personal interest in resolving minor issues like issuance of visa to the needy and helped the Indian diaspora in distress through her social media outreach.
