EAM Sushma Swaraj’s big announcement confounds the Lutyens’ cabal

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has announced that she won’t contest 2019 Lok Sabha elections. She said, “It is the party which decides, but I have made up my mind not to contest next elections.”

The 66 year old Member of Parliament from Vidisha, MP announced her decision to not to contest the 2019 general elections at a press conference in Indore, and reportedly has cited health reasons behind her decision.  

In 2014 General Election elections, she retained her Lok Sabha seat by a huge margin of over four lakh votes.

Sushma Swaraj has a long and distinguished career as a politician which is an inspiration for all those women who wants to leave their mark on Indian politics. At the age of 25, she became the youngest minister in Haryana government in 1977. In 1998, she also served as the CM of Delhi. She has been elected seven times as a Member of Parliament and three times as a Member of the Legislative Assembly.
She replaced Salman Khurshid as Minister of External Affairs in 2014 after BJP’s landslide victory in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. 4.5 years in into the Government’s tenure, she has been one of the most popular and a loved face in the current Cabinet and it has seen her transformation from a politician to a statesman. She is one of the best cabinet ministers as well as a renowned public speaker and an orator who knows many languages.

As an External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj’s compassion for Indians living in foreign countries is very well known. Her ministry is always ready to help distressed Indians living and working in foreign countries. She is one of the most popular ministers in PM Modi’s cabinet. Just one tweet and Sushma Swaraj is ready to help out the needy ones. Sushma Swaraj has been among the best performing ministers of the government, and apart from foreign policy and making a mark at the world stage, she has helped and rescued thousands of Indians in distress. Since 2014 her ministry has saved 90,000 Indians, worldwide.

Her step to not to contest 2019 Lok Sabha elections is appreciated by many as to make way for younger generations. If rumors are to be believed, the BJP might send her to Rajya Sabha. There is also a third set of people propagating their theory that the main reason behind Sushma Swaraj’s decision to abstain from contesting 2019 Lok Sabha elections is that she is aware that BJP is going to win in 2019 again but this time she won’t get any important ministry. So, she decided to take a graceful retirement from electoral politics.

There are people who consider her as a member of 160 clique.

https://twitter.com/ippatel/status/1012336653786968064

Some people believe that Sushma Swaraj is a member of the old clique of BJP which opposed Narendra Modi’s candidature as the PM. The 160 theorists believe that in 2019 general elections if the BJP gets around less than 200 seats then the consensus candidate for the post of the PM would be the favorite of ‘dominant coalition’. This dominant coalition would support such a person who would be favorable to their establishment. According to these theorists, Sushma Swaraj is the favorite candidate of the dominant coalition because of her secular credentials. During Tanvi Seth passport row, Lutyens’ Media and dominant coalition strongly supported Sushma Swaraj.

Now, with her decision to not contest the elections at all, Sushma Swaraj has also laid rest to these rumors of potential challengers against PM Modi within the party. Sushma Swaraj’s resignation lays waste the entire propaganda campaign of the Lutyens’ cabal to prop her up as a challenger to PM Modi.