External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar formally joined the BJP on Monday in the presence of party’s working president JP Nadda at the Parliament House.
Jaishankar was appointed as the External Affairs Minister in the new Narendra Modi cabinet. He replaced veteran leader Sushma Swaraj, who decided not to contest this time.
Jaishankar, the son of one of India’s foremost strategic thinkers, K Subrahmanyam, is considered to be very close to the prime minister and was part of a troika with Modi and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval that played a major role in shaping foreign policy in the early years of the last NDA government.
Experts say Jaishankar’s attitude was a good fit with Modi’s unorthodox and risk-taking approach to foreign policy issues.
An IFS officer of the 1977 batch, he has widespread expertise in nuclear diplomacy and relations with the US and China. He played an important role in negotiating the 2008 India-US civil nuclear deal.
Jaishankar is a graduate of St Stephen’s College and has a master’s degree in political science and an MPhil and PhD in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University.
