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Sushma Swaraj and Kaushal: A power couple at centre of controversy (Profile)
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By Ranjana NarayanNew Delhi, June 15
As controversy continues to
billow over External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for helping former
IPL chief Lalit Modi procure travel documents to Portugal, media
interest has latched on to the senior ministera's family - her husband
Swaraj Kaushal and daughter Bansuri.
The two have also been named
in emails exchanged between Modi and Indian-origin British member of
Parliament Keith Vaz. The names of the husband and daughter of Sushma
Swaraj have been doing the rounds after Britain's Sunday Times reported
an email exchange between influential Labour MP Vaz and head of UK Visas
and Immigration Sarah Rapson, citing Sushma Swaraj.
The Indian
foreign minister helped facilitate travel documents for Lalit Modi, a
former head of the Indian Premier League (IPL), who has been charged
with alleged financial impropriety and is staying in London since 2010.
According
to Sushma Swaraj's bio on the ministry of external affairs website,
Swaraj Kaushal is a senior advocate of Supreme Court of India and a
criminal lawyer who served as Governor of Mizoram from 1990 to 1993.
Swaraj Kaushal was a Member of Parliament from 1998 to 2004. They have a
daughter, Bansuri, who is a graduate from Oxford University and a
Barrister at Law from Inner Temple
Kaushal, known to be an expert
in northeast affairs, was also the first government interlocutor in the
Naga peace process. He was appointed by the A.B. Vajpayee government to
talk to the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (I-M) leaders Isak
Chishi Swu and Th Muivah. However, the government replaced him with
former union home secretary K. Padmanabhaiah over differences on the
modalities of the ceasefire with the Nagas. After his removal, he wrote
in a daily, "Don't trust this prime minister (Atal Bihari Vajpayee)."
Kaushal later made amends and was all praise for the Vajpayee
government's efforts to settle the Naga issue.
According to
reports, Kaushal, 63, has been Lalit Modi's lawyer for more than two
decades. Both Sushma and her husband defended the then opposition leader
George Fernandes in the Baroda Dynamite Case, the term used for the
criminal case launched by the Indira Gandhi government in India during
the Emergency (1975-77) against Fernandes and 24 others. The CBI had
framed false charges against Fernandes and others of smuggling dynamite
to blow up government establishments and railway tracks in protest
against the Emergency.
Kaushal, also has to his credit the
release of then underground Mizo leader Laldenga in the conspiracy trial
in 1979. He was constitutional advisor to the Mizo National Front, led
by Laldenga, for a number of years and played an important role in the
talks between the government and the MNF leadership. The talks led to
the signing of the Mizoram accord in 1986.
He was appointed the
first Advocate General of Mizoram. He holds the distinction of being the
youngest person to become a governor in India, when he was made Mizoram
governor in 1990 at the age of 37.
Sushma Swaraj, born in 1952,
a former ABVP activist and daughter of an RSS worker, was the youngest
ever cabinet minister (at 25 in Devi Lal's cabinet) in 1977-79. She
married Socialist Party worker Swaraj Kaushal in July 1975 and worked
with Jai Prakash Narayan. In 1977, she won the Assembly polls from her
home constituency Ambala Cantt on a Socialist Party ticket and joined
Devi Lal's cabinet with seven portfolios. In 1984, she joined the BJP.
In
1996 she was first elected to the Lok Sabha from South Delhi. In 1998,
she was re-elected to the Lok Sabha and held the portfolios of
information and broadcasting and telecom ministers. She replaced Sahib
Singh Verma as Delhi chief minister in October 1998, on the party's
call, 40 days ahead of the Assembly elections.
In the 1999 Lok
Sabha polls she fought against Congress president Sonia Gandhi in
Bellary, considered a stronghold of the Congress. She lost by 50,000
votes. She is also famous for having threatened in 2004 to shave her
head if Sonia Gandhi ever became prime minister. But she later buried
the hatchet with Sonia Gandhi and shared a cordial relationship. In
2007, she won the Best Parliamentarian Award and was made the first
spokeswoman of the BJP. In 2009, she won the Lok Sabha polls from
Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh. She was elected Leader of Opposition in the
Lok Sabha. She got her education at S.D.College, Ambala Cantt (Haryana)
and Department of Law, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
Sushma is known for her oratorical skills.
The
senior most minister in the Narendra Modi camp and known to be the most
efficient, Sushma Swaraj is known to be part of the L.K. Advani party
camp. As external affairs minister, Sushma has kept a low profile but
has been extremely busy in her diplomatic engagements. Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has hogged all the limelight with his many foreign tours,
overshadowing his minister. But Sushma Swaraj has said she finds a
proactive prime minister to be a support. Their daughter, Bansuri, is a
graduate from Oxford University and a Barrister at Law from Inner
Temple. She is reported to have represented Lalit Modi for seven years.