Former Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj died at 67

Sushma Swaraj, the former foreign minister of India and a senior member of the governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), died at the age of 67 on August 6, 2019. Approximately 9:30pm, the senior BJP leader was brought to AIIMS and taken to the emergency ward after a huge cardiac arrest.  

Swaraj was renowned for her active social media presence, often responding to Indians abroad's demands for assistance. 

Sushma Swaraj cremated 'People's Minister' with full state honors as nation mourns loss. Hundreds of individuals bade goodbye, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chairman Amit Shah and veteran party leader Lal Krishna Advani.

                                   

Leader of the opposition Congress Party Rahul Gandhi described Swaraj as "an extraordinary political leader, a talented orator and an exceptional parliamentarian with party-wide friendship."

Politicians, celebrities, and normal Indians went to Twitter to express their grief about the death of Swaraj and pay homage.

National President of Jamaat Ulama-e-Hind Molana Suhaib Qasmi, who came with a group of people from the Nizamuddin area, said, "Her death is a great loss for the party and the country. As a foreign minister, she had helped so many distressed people in the diaspora, whether they were in Saudi Arabia or Iraq or Yemen. She lifted the stature of India as the minister of foreign relations. Her death shocks us, "he said.  

She thanked Modi in her last tweets for introducing a contentious measure to India's parliament to revoke the unique status of India-administered part of the disputed Kashmir territory, a move that came after New Delhi imposed a Muslim-majority clampdown. 

Swaraj graduated from law and in the 1970s started her political career strongly connected with socialist rulers.

She actively opposed the Congress Party's 1975 emergency rule enforced by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

She entered the BJP later and grew to become one of its top rulers, last serving as India's foreign minister, only the second female in the post-Indira Gandhi position.

From 2014 to 2019, she was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.