Soft power, tough love: Sushma Swaraj, a politician who means business

Swaraj, a professional politician, doesn't waste time entertaining reporters, fellow partymen, MLAs, and so on

Sushma Swaraj used to be a darling of the Opposition. As Speaker, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Somnath Chatterjee had paid her fulsome compliments, going so far as to call her the best parliamentary affairs minister India has ever had, much to the irritation of his party. More recently, after she was made minister for external affairs, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav defended her when she was charged with having given disgraced businessman Lalit Modi a way out of his predicament by telling the British government to let him travel abroad during the period he did not have