Senior BJP leader and former Union Minister Arun Jaitley passes away

Senior BJP leader and former finance minister Arun Jaitley passed away on Saturday at AIIMS. He was 66.

In a statement, the hospital said , “It is with profound grief that we inform about the sad demise of Shri Arun Jaitley, Hon’ble Member of Parliament and former Finance Minister Government of India at 12:07 pm on August 24, 2019. Arun Jaitley was admitted in AIIMS, New Delhi on 09/08/2019 and was treated by a multidisciplinary team of senior Doctors.”

Jaitley was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi on August 9. He was under observation at the Cardio-Neuro-Centre of the hospital. Hospital sources had earlier said he was on life support.

A lawyer by profession, Arun Jaitley was the Finance Minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet’s first term. As finance minister, Arun Jaitley presented all of the BJP government budgets till 2018. Due to illness, he was unable to present the 2019 Interim Budget, which was instead presented by Union Minister Piyush Goyal.

Jaitley, who had stopped attending office since early April last year, was back in the finance ministry on August 23, 2018.

Arun Jaitley was jailed by the Indira Gandhi government during the Emergency. He was an ABVP leader at the time. He had written a series of articles on the dark days of Emergency last year.

Jaitley was also a member in the Atal Bihari Vajapyee cabinet. He held the cabinet portfolios of Finance, Defence, Corporate Affairs, Commerce and Industry and Law and Justice in the Vajpayee government and Narendra Modi government. He served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha between 2009 and 2014. Arun Jaitley is survived by his wife and two children.