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Swaraj back as Union IB minister: PTI

Sushma Swaraj makes a comeback to the Union Cabinet as minister for information and broadcasting after being in the political wilderness for around two years.

She resigned as Union minister for information and broadcasting to replace Sahib Singh Verma as chief minister of Delhi on the eve of the 1998 assembly election. The BJP expected she would lead the party to victory. Instead, the assembly election was won by Sheila Dixit and her Congress party.

Swaraj was sidelined by the BJP until the 1999 general election, when she was pitted against Sonia Gandhi for the Bellary seat in Karnataka. Though she lost to the Congress president, she did give Sonia a run for her money.

She was subsequently elected to the Rajya Sabha earlier this year. More recently, she was offered, and declined, an organisational post within the BJP.

Swaraj has spent more than two decades in politics. The 48-year-old former socialist came to occupy an important place in the BJP as its first spokesperson. She defended her party's politics for five years before she became the minister for information and broadcasting in the Vajpayee government.

Swaraj made her debut in the electoral fray as a young woman and remained active in Haryana politics from 1977 to 1990. Soon after the formation of the Janata Party government at the Centre in 1977, the Haryana government was dismissed and the state went to the polls. She was fielded from Ambala Cantonment against octagenarian Devraj Anand, whom she trounced.

Impressed by her victory, Devi Lal inducted her into his ministry -- the youngest-ever minister in Haryana -- and allotted her eight portfolios. Swaraj again contested from Ambala Cantonment, this time on a BJP ticket, and won. She was made a minister for the second time in the coalition government headed by Devi Lal.

Daughter of an RSS activist, Swaraj quit the Janata Party in 1984 to join the BJP. Elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1990, she made her maiden entry to the Lok Sabha in 1996 from the prestigious South Delhi constituency, defeating high-profile Congress candidate Kapil Sibal. She comfortably retained the seat in 1998.

Married to Swaraj Kaushal in 1975, Swaraj has one child -- a daughter. Her husband, now a Rajya Sabha member, is a former governor of Mizoram.

PTI

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