Swaraj’s Vidisha connect that lasted till death

Former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, who passed away on Tuesday night at the age of 67, had a special Madhya Pradesh connect that lasted over 11 years and ended only with death.

Vidisha, in Madhya Pradesh, was her last parliamentary constituency, which she represented twice -- from 2009 to 2019. But before contesting Lok Sabha elections from the seat, she was elected to the Rajya Sabha from the state in 2008.

When she filed her nomination for the Rajya Sabha, she chose to stay at the residence of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker, Jitendra Daga, in Gandhi Nagar on the outskirts of Bhopal.

After she was elected to the Lok Sabha, she stayed at her official bungalow at Civil Lines in Bhopal. On her profile page on the Lok Sabha website, her permanent address is given as: C-7, Civil Lines, Bhopal.

BJP functionaries say Swaraj was keen to contest the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Bhopal but then sitting MP and BJP veteran, Kailash Joshi, wished to contest the seat again. So, in deference to the senior leader, she opted for neighbouring Vidisha.

The Congress candidate from Vidisha in 2009 was Rajkumar Patel. For some reason, he wasn’t able to show up on time for validation of his nomination papers, leading to the cancellation of his nomination.

Swaraj won Vidisha by about 3,90,000 votes in 2009. Five years later, she won the seat polls by a bigger margin of 4,10,000 votes.

According to a senior BJP leader, who did not wish to be named, “When Sushma Swaraj came to stay in Bhopal while representing Vidisha, disgruntled elements in the BJP, not happy with then chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s working, wanted to rally behind her. But Swaraj didn’t allow a parallel power centre to develop within the BJP in Madhya Pradesh.”

She was particular about celebrating Rang Panchmi in Bhopal but stopped coming for the festival after she developed health issues.

Senior BJP leader Govind Maloo, who was associated with her, said, “We were mesmerised by her personality. She was a great leader and parliamentarian, excellent orator, devoted and dedicated party worker and, above all, a great human being who had compassion for others.”

Ram Raghuvanshi, a BJP leader from Vidisha who was Swaraj’s representative in the constituency, said, “Vidisha’s development was possible only because of her efforts. Today Vidisha has a medical college, an auditorium, a passport office and four flyovers. A locomotive engine factory, whose foundation stone was laid by her in 2015, will start functioning anytime now,”

Swaraj also took personal interest in the welfare of Geeta, a deaf girl who strayed into Pakistan when she was 11 and was stuck there for 15 years. Geeta returned to India on October 26, 2015, thanks to Swaraj’s untiring efforts, and was kept in a shelter home in Indore. Swaraj made a personal appeal to people to identify her parents and also tried to get her married.

According to shelter employees who spoke on condition of anonymity, Geeta broke down on Wednesday when she heard of Swaraj’s death, saying she had “lost her mother”. A special prayer was organised at the shelter home to pay tribute to the leader.

Arvind Mishra, a resident of Satna, said, “Sushma Swaraj was instrumental in ensuring the return of a man stranded in Malaysia for several years due to some technical reason. When she came to know his daughter had died in a road accident, along with some other girls, and the family had deferred her cremation due to the absence of her father, [she arranged his return].”

Among several others, she had also helped Ramzan, a 15-year-old boy, return home to his father in Bangladesh in November 2015. Ramzan had then been living in a Bhopal shelter home.

Swaraj last visited Vidisha in May when sitting MP Ramakant Bhargava was filing his nomination papers for the 2019 Lok Sabha election. She had then told a gathering she would not be MP any more but would continue to consider Vidisha her home.

“None of us ever expected that she would leave us so early and leave us shattered,” said Raghuvanshi.