New Delhi: Former finance minister Arun Jaitley passed away at the AIIMS hospital here on Saturday afternoon.
According to a press release put out by the hospital, Jaitley breathed his last at 12:07 pm.
The 66-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader is survived by his wife Sangeeta, daughter Sonali and son Rohan.
Jaitley, an accomplished lawyer who occupied ministerial berths in the NDA-I government in 1999 before going onto become a key member of Narendra Modi’s cabinet in the NDA-II government in 2014, has struggled with health issues over the last year.
In 2018, he underwent a kidney transplant to stave off an infection. Earlier this year, he was diagnosed with soft-tissue cancer just before the Union budget and had to temporarily step down as finance minister.
On August 9, Jaitley was admitted to AIIMS over what media reports said were “breathing difficulties”. At the time, the hospital issued a statement saying that the senior BJP leader was “hemodynamically stable” and that a team of multidisciplinary doctors were supervising his treatment.
Over the last five years, Jaitley emerged as the chief troubleshooter of the NDA-II government, building consensus amongst states over the roll-out of the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime in 2017 while shepherding key economic legislation through parliament like the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code in 2016.
The press release put out by AIIMS.
Multiple political leaders across party lines tweeted their condolences, remembering Jaitley’s contribution to the economy and the Indian polity.