Modi drops Sushma from his cabinet

Narendra Modi dropped Sushma Swaraj from his new Council of Ministers as he was sworn-in for his second term in the office of the Prime Minister on Thursday.

Swaraj, 67, has been External Affairs Minister of Modi Government since the beginning of its first term in May 2014. She opted out of the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections citing health reasons.

Though it is still not clear who will replace Swaraj as External Affairs Minister in the second term of Modi Government, speculation is rife that Prime Minister may entrust the responsibility to either Nirmala Sitharaman, who held commerce and defence portfolios in the past five years, or former Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar.

Jaishankar took oath as a Union Minister on Thursday. Swaraj was elected seven times as a Member of Parliament. She, however, underwent a kidney transplant in December 2016. She announced just before Lok Sabha polls this year that she would not contest the elections due to health reasons.

She, however, later clarified that she was not retiring from politics.

She was very active and popular on social media during her tenure as External Affairs Minister in the past five years, helping out people, who land in trouble during visits to foreign countries.

Swaraj held health and family welfare, telecommunication and information and broadcasting portfolios in late and former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's cabinet.