few years of his political life seeing limited recognition, until he was initiated in the Jan Sangh. He tasted success in his political career in 1980 when he was first selected for the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian parliament. He served as Finance minister in the short-lived government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which lasted just from 16 May 1996, to 1 June 1996. After Vajpayee became Prime Minister again two years later, he became Minister for External Affairs of India, serving from 5 December 1998 until 1 July 2002. Responsible for foreign policy, he dealt with high tensions between India and Pakistan. In July 2002 he became Finance Minister again, switching posts with Yashwant Sinha. He served as Finance Minister until the defeat of the Vajpayee government in May 2004 and was instrumental in defining and pushing through the market-friendly reforms of the government. He was conferred the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award for the year 2001. On 19 August 2009, he was expelled from BJP after criticism over his remarks in his book which allegedly praised the founder of Pakistan in his book Jinnah – India, Partition, Independence. His last major position was as Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha from 2004 to 2009. He was denied a ticket by the party to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha Parliamentary Elections from the Barmer-Jaisalmer constituency in Rajasthan. He was subsequently expelled from the BJP after deciding to contest the elections as an independent candidate and lost to his former party's candidate Col. Sonaram Choudhary. Jaswant Singh was elected from Darjeeling Seat from the year 2009 to 2014. Ministries and Work Jaswant Singh held many ministries under the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, including several important such as Defence, External Affairs and Finance. He has also held many important positions including that of Electronics and Science and Technology. Minister of Finance (First time) Singh remained as the Minister of Finance in the short-lived government of First Vajpayee government from 16 May 1996 to 1 June 1996. In the short-lived government where he was Minister for just 24 days and there was also economic difficulty, a crisis due to the political instability, and there was a loss of employment similar to the 1991 Indian economic crisis which lead to the decline in the value of Indian currency. It was followed by the instability after the fall of Narsimha Rao government. After