Sushma Swaraj/File Image
Sushma Swaraj, India's popular leader, breathed her last on Tuesday. She was a powerful orator, an easily-accessible external affairs minister and a politician of many firsts. Sushma Swaraj was a loyal BJP soldier who was always ready to face a challenge. The country remembers the fierce leader for her many memorable speeches. Here are five of them:
1. 1996 trust vote speech: This surely goes down in history as Sushma Swaraj's most powerful speech. She was defending the no-confidence motion against the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1996. This fiery speech had Swaraj equating her analogies to the Ramayan and Mahabharat, as she explained why the saffron party had to step down. And so it happened! The benches were thumping with praises.
2. 2013 unusual duel with Manmohan Singh: It was an unusual duel which Sushma Swaraj engaged in with the then prime Minister Manmohan Singh over corruption charges. Both the leaders used Urdu couplets to trade barbs at each other.
3. 2015 speech on Lalit Modi controversy: It was back in 2015 when Sushma Swaraj was accused of having lobbied on behalf of former Indian Premier League Chief (IPL) Lalit Modi. She put up a strong defence for her and ripped apart the Opposition with her point-by-point rebuttal.
4. 2017 speech on Kulbhushan Jadhav: Who can forget the inhuman treatment meted out to Kulbhushan Jadhav's family in Pakistan. Wife and mother of Jadhav, former Indian Navy officer, were presented as "widows" in front of him, Swaraj had said in Parliament. Jadhav feared something unfortunate happened in the family and enquired about the well-being of his father. The case of Kulbhushan Jadhav managed to get international attention as it was raised by Sushma Swaraj on various platforms.
5. 2018 speech exposing Pakistan at UNGA: In a 2008 speech at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, Sushma Swaraj exposed Pakistan on the global stage. She reiterated India's stand that "talks and terror" cannot go together, accusing Pakistan of being an expert in trying to mask malevolence with verbal duplicity.
