New Delhi: On June 11, 1996, Sushma Swaraj, while making her most impassioned speech on the floor of the Lok Sabha talked about the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s long-term plan of repealing Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir.
Twenty-three summers later, the senior BJP leader expressed her gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for revoking the same article, in her last tweet hours before she breathed her last.
"@narendramodi ji - Thank you Prime Minister. Thank you very much. I was waiting to see this day in my lifetime,” she wrote moments before she was taken to AIIMS, Delhi, after suffering a massive heart attack, where she was declared dead.
The 1996 speech in Parliament was when Swaraj stood for speaking against the no-confidence motion. She lashed out at her political opponents after Atal Bihari Vajpayee had to resign from the Prime Minister’s post.
“We are communal, because we want to abolish the Article 370, we are communal, because we want to put an end to discrimination based on caste and creed in this country... Mr Speaker, we are communal, because we want the voices of the Kashmiri refugees to be heard,” she had said.
Amid a roaring House, Swaraj had laid the foundation for what would go on to be one of the most landmark decisions taken by any government of the country since Independence.
Later in her speech, the former external minister went on to explain why the BJP had to step down and equated her analogies to the Ramayan and Mahabharat.
“When one Manthara and one Shakuni can keep the likes of Lord Rama and Yudishthir out of their right to rule, then if you take a look around this House, you’ll find many Manthras and many Shakunis opposing us. How can we stay in power? I suppose it (no-confidence motion) is the nature of Ramrajya and Surajya,” she said.
Her speech gathered such enthusiastic response from the members of the House that the then speaker PA Sangma had to intervene. He said, "Please, don't make your speech so interesting!"
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