Sitharaman first woman to helm defence ministry independently
NEW DELHI: Until Saturday, she was a goner, at least that’s what media reports claimed. Come Sunday, Nirmala Sitharaman scripted history.
An alumna of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the 58-yearold BJP leader will be the second woman to be the Raksha Mantri, long held to be a male turf, after Indira Gandhi, India’s first woman prime minister.
Gandhi was the prime minister when she kept the defence portfolio with herself — from December 1 to 21, 1975 and January 14, 1980 to January 15, 1982.
Sitharaman, who was the commerce minister before being promoted to the cabinet rank, also breaks into the all-powerful Cabinet Committee of Security, whose other members are Prime Minister Narendra Modi, finance minister Arun Jaitley, home minister Rajnath Singh and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.
NEWDELHI: Until Saturday, she was a goner, at least that’s what media reports claimed. Come Sunday, Nirmala Sitharaman scripted history.
An alumna of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the 58-yearold BJP leader will be the second woman to be the Raksha Mantri, long held to be a male turf, after Indira Gandhi, India’s first woman prime minister.
Gandhi was the prime minister when she kept the defence portfolio with herself — from December 1 to 21, 1975 and January 14, 1980 to January 15, 1982.
Sitharaman, who was the commerce minister before being promoted to the cabinet rank, also breaks into the all-powerful Cabinet Committee of Security. The other members are PM Narendra Modi, finance minister Arun Jaitley, home minister Rajnath Singh and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj.
“Somebody who has come from a small town, grown into the party with all the support of the leadership, and if given such responsibility, it just makes you feel sometimes that cosmic grace is there. Otherwise it is impossible,” she told reporters after taking oath.
Her rise in politics has been slow, but steady
She served as a member of the National Commission for Women between 2003 and 2005. Scholarly and non-controversial, Sitharaman, who also had a stint with Pricewaterhouse-Coopers research unit in London, was brought into the BJP’s national executive committee in 2008 and appointed party’s national spokesperson in 2010 when Nitin Gadkari took over as the party president.
Sitharaman soon became a prominent face of the BJP on TV. She was among the few party leaders who were articulate, aggressive and could get the viewpoint across effortlessly in English. In her initial days as spokesperson, the Tamil Naduborn politician admitted her knowledge of Hindi was limited but she soon had gained proficiency. She was the favourite when it came to defending Modi on the 2002 Gujarat riots (he was the chief minister) and the RSS on charges of fomenting “Hindu terror”. She did not disappoint the party leadership.