Former Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj Passes Away Aged 67 - Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th August, 2019) Sushma Swaraj, the former foreign minister of India and a senior leader of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), passed away at the age of 67 after suffering a heart attack on Tuesday.

At around 9:30 p.m. local time (16:30 GMT) Swaraj was admitted to the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and immediately taken to the emergency ward, the Times of India newspaper said.

Doctors said she died of a cardiac arrest.

"A glorious chapter in Indian politics comes to an end. India grieves the demise of a remarkable leader who devoted her life to public service and bettering lives of the poor.

Sushma Swaraj Ji was one of her kind, who was a source of inspiration for crores of people," Modi posted on Twitter.

Swaraj became India's youngest cabinet minister at the age of 25 in 1977. She was the second woman to serve as the country's foreign minister after Indira Gandhi. Swaraj left office on May 30.

She established herself as a foreign minister accessible for Indians from all over the world, particularly through social media. In her last Twitter post earlier in the day, she thanked Modi, saying she was waiting to witness "that day" during her lifetime, evidently referring to the government's decision to bifurcate the Indian part of Kashmir.