NEW DELHI: Sushma Swaraj, former foreign minister and a senior BJP leader admired across political lines, died on Tuesday evening after a cardiac arrest. She will be cremated with state honours in Delhi this afternoon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, became emotional as he visited her home this morning and spoke with her husband Swaraj Kaushal and daughter Bansuri. In tweets, the PM described her death as a “personal loss” and wrote: “India grieves the demise of a remarkable leader who devoted her life to public service and bettering lives of the poor.”
Sushma Swaraj, 67, had been unwell for some time and had opted out of contesting the election earlier this year. She was taken around 9 pm to Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where several BJP leaders and ministers gathered after the news started trickling in.
Hours before her death, Ms Swaraj had, in what would be her last tweet, congratulated PM Modi for the move to end special status to Jammu and Kashmir and reorganise the state into two union territories. In her last tweet she wrote “Thank you Prime Minister. Thank you very much. I was waiting to see this day in my lifetime,” she had tweeted.
A nine-time parliamentarian, Ms Swaraj became the youngest minister of a state, Haryana, back in 1977. She was also a former Supreme Court lawyer and was among the top ministers in PM Modi’s cabinet in his first term, which ended in May.
As Foreign Minister, Ms Swaraj earned praise for responding to SOS messages from Indians across the world; her interventions ranged from seeking information on relatives stranded in avalanches in other countries to helping families bring home a relative’s body. An active social media user, she often responded on Twitter to people seeking assistance or just reaching out to her and used her wit to tackle even bizarre messages.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also mourned her death.
Sushma Swaraj was also chief minister of Delhi, and later held the portfolios of information and broadcasting, and health in the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The body of former Union minister Sushma Swaraj will be kept for three hours at the BJP headquarters today for party workers and leaders to pay tributes, BJP working president JP Nadda said. Her last rites will be performed at the Lodhi crematorium.
