By SUNIL Sonkar

NEW DELHI, India: Is it an end of a political era? It seems so. The curtains drop down of an era of Atal-Advani in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) when the veteran leader of the party L K Advani stepped down from his post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha on Friday and announced that his replacement is Sushma Swaraj.

Sushma Swaraj becomes the first politician in the Parliament to be appointed as the leader of the opposition. Ms. Swaraj has been a minister in Haryana, CM of Delhi and she has contested Lok Sabha elections from Delhi, Karnataka, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.

Swaraj (58) acquired high profile in party and also in politics a decade ago in 1999 when she contested Lok Sabha election against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi from Bellary in Karnataka and she also hit the headlines once when she threatened to shave her head if Sonia Gandhi becomes prime minister.

She sticks to wide-bordered saris with a big red bindi and sindoor. Her trademark is her smile that never slips. She has always carried with her an effective presentation of her views in the Parliament and even outside it.

Sushma Swaraj was born on February 14, 1952 in Ambala Cantonment in Haryana and is presently serving as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. She has earned B.A. degree and has also studied LLB from the Law Department of Punjab University in Chandigarh. On July 13, 1975 she got married to Swaraj Kaushal, a former Mizoram Governor, and both have one daughter. Her political career started in 1970s when she was a student leader organizing protests against Indira Gandhi’s government.