New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) firebrand leader Subramanian Swamy celebrated his 76th birthday on September 15.
Five time parliamentarian, two-time Union Minister, Swamy - a Tamil Brahmin, began his academic career as a Harvard professor at a very young age.
Swamy, an alumni of the Harvard University, from where he was dropped over his articles in a newspaper was one of the founding members of Janata Party. He, however, in 2014 merged his party with the BJP.
Usually referred as a one man army, Swamy is today one the most revered politicians in Indian history after Independence.
He played a crucial role in exposing the 2G spectrum scam during UPA regime, which led to the arrest of former telecom minister and DMK leader A Raja.
India TV brings to you 10 things you probably don't know about this leader:
1. It was Swamy's effort in 1981 that he managed for the Hindu devotees to get an access for Kailash Mansarovar Yatra. His meeting with then China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping normalized the issue and the pilgrimage route was re-opened.
2. Swamy was a member of Planning Commission and Union Minister of Commerce and Law during the period of 1990-91. Not many know that the blue-print of the landmark economic reforms was prepared by him under the prime ministership of Chandra Shekhar Singh. The document was carried out by the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh during PV Narasimha Rao's prime ministership.
3. The 2G scam under UPA regime caused a loss of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore to the national exchequer, according to a CAG report. Swamy was the first person to write to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking permission to prosecute the then Telecom Minister A Raja. He moved to the Supreme Court after the government didn't heed him.
4. In 2004, when Congress-led UPA was voted to power, Sonia Gandhi had put forward her name to the then President APJ Abdul Kalam for prime ministership. But according to Swamy, it was his letter to the President that made Kalam to persuade Sonia to not make her a Prime Minister. However, Kalam had refuted Swamy's claim.
5. Swamy has taken on the Gandhi family by himself for years now. He has accused Sonia and he son Rahul Gandhi of funds embezzlement in National Herald Case. Swamy accused the Gandhis of setting up another company named Young India Company to pay the debt using Congress' party funds.
6. During Emergency, arrest warrants were issued against ministers including Swamy. He managed to escape from India and flew to Colombo and onward to USA. It was only then, despite of arrest warrant issued against him, Swamy dared to step-in the Parliament on a working day. It took everyone by surprise in the House and once again, donning a Sardara (Sikh) he managed to flee India.
7. Backed by a full Rockefeller scholarship, in two and a half years, Swamy at 24 completed his PhD from Harvard.
8. Because he proposed to deprive Muslims from voting unless they acknowledge belonging to a Hindu ancestry, Harvard University dropped his two summer economics courses taught by Swami from its curriculum.
9. Swamy co-authored a paper on theory of index numbers with Paul Samuelson, the first American who won Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The paper was published in 1974.
10. Swamy is considered an authority on the Chinese economy and especially comparative analysis of Indian and China. In 1975, he authored a book titled 'Economic Growth in China and India, 1952-70: A Comparative Appraisal'. He learnt Chinese/Mandarin in just 3 months.
Swamy is surely a man of substance whose achievements are of a somewhat different nature than others.
