India Prime Minister Narendra Modi Pays Respects to Former Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offers a wreath at the funeral of India’s former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) office in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, August 7. Swaraj served in Modi’s Cabinet from 2014 to 2019 before dying of a heart attack at the age of 67 on Tuesday.

After undergoing a kidney transplant during her tenure as minister, Swaraj decided not to run for this year’s general election, citing health issues.

In a series of tweets, Modi said that Swaraj’s death was a “personal loss” and that she had worked tirelessly at India’s external affairs ministry.

Swaraj’s last tweets thanked Modi for bringing a measure to Parliament to revoke constitutional protections for the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir. The bill lawmakers passed earlier Tuesday strips Jammu and Kashmir — India’s only Muslim-majority state — of its statehood. The law also does away with the region’s right to its own constitution and to Kashmiris’ hereditary rights to land, jobs and scholarships.

https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/indias-former-foreign-minister-sushma-swaraj-dies-67