Sushma Swaraj should have been Prime Minister in 2014, says Chidambaram

NEW DELHI: Coming in support of External Affairs Minister vis-a-vis trolls over the passport row, Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram has said that Sushma Swaraj was the "natural choice" to Prime Minister's post in 2014.

"During 2009-2014, she (Sushma) was the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, a position that in a parliamentary democracy should have made her the natural choice to be the prime minister if her party won the election," writes Mr Chidambaram in a newspaper article.

"The BJP won the election in 2014, but an "outsider" with tremendous energy and political skill had already stormed his way to become the leader of the party and, therefore, Prime Minister," writes Mr Chidambaram on Mr Narendra Modi.

Calling the trolls in social network a 'mob' of the virtual world, former Home Minister says one such mob launched attack against Sushma Swaraj recently and points out that Ms Swaraj was "trolled as no BJP leader had been".

"It became obvious that the trolls belonged to the same army that is routinely unleashed every day against opposition leaders," he alleges in his article for 'The Indian Express'.

Mr Chidambaram also mentions that Ms Swaraj along with LK Advani had "resisted the rise of Mr Narendra Modi but lost".

After the election, he says though Ms Swaraj became Minister of External Affairs, she had "little say in the conduct of foreign policy" - as this had been taken over by the Prime Minister's Office.

"The smart Ms Swaraj invented a role for herself - champion of the little person who was stranded in a foreign country or had been abducted/imprisoned or denied a passport/visa or required admission to an Indian university/hospital and so on," says the Congress leader and says "there was a need for such a Good Samaritan and the people seemed to love her benevolence".

"It also helped that she (Sushma) scrupulously avoided confrontation with opposition parties," writes Mr Chidambaram.