Sushma Swaraj enhanced India’s reputation globally as foreign minister, says Amit Shah

Union minister Amit Shah said BJP leader Sushma Swaraj had left a void which would be hard to fill, both in the party and in national politics

Her legacy will be the possibilities she opened up for women politicians in a male-dominated party like the BJP | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

New Delhi: The untimely demise of Sushma Swaraj had left him as well as millions of party workers and her admirers in a state of shock, Union home minister and BJP president Amit Shah said on Wednesday, as he remembered the departed leader’s stints in various positions in the opposition and in different governments.

Speaking to reporters after paying his last respects to Swaraj at her residence here, Shah said as the external affairs minister in the first term of the Narendra Modi government, Swaraj had enhanced the country’s reputation across the world and her death had left a void which would be hard to fill.

“Her untimely demise is not a big loss for the BJP alone, but also for national politics,” he said.

Shah added that Swaraj zoomed across the political firmament like a bright star and made valuable contributions, whether as the Delhi chief minister or the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha or a minister in the first Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and then, in the Modi dispensation.

“The country will always remember her services,” he said.

Swaraj breathed her last at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here on Tuesday night, following a massive heart attack. She was 67.