Arun Jaitley — Former Union and Indian Finance Minister dies at 66

Former Union and Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, a key individual from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first-term Cabinet, passed on in a New Delhi hospital on Saturday after a prolonged ailment. He was 66.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences declared Jaitley’s demise in a statement, however, did not give any subtleties. He was admitted to the hospital two weeks prior after he whined of breathlessness and restlessness.

Arun Jaitley held the finance portfolio in Modi’s Hindu nationalist led government from 2014 during this time yet decided not to keep running for reelection in light of poor health.

Arun Jaitley was diabetic and had bariatric — weight loss surgery — in 2014, got a kidney transplant in 2018 and traveled to the United States last January for unknown medicinal consideration.

He is survived by his wife, son and daughter.

Narendra Modi said on Twitter that Arun Jaitley “was a political giant, towering intellectual and legal luminary. He was an articulate leader who made a lasting contribution to India.”

Indian President Ram Nath Kovind said he was amazingly disheartened by the news. “A brilliant lawyer, a seasoned parliamentarian, and a distinguished minister, he contributed immensely to nation-building,” he tweeted.

A lawyer who first got involved in politics as a student leader at Delhi University during the 1970s, Arun Jaitley additionally filled in as a minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party government led by then-Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee from 1999 to 2003.

In Narendra Modi’s government, Arun Jaitley held the portfolios of finance, defense, and corporate affairs. In Vajpayee’s government, he controlled data and broadcasting, as well as disinvestment, and later additionally law and equity and company affairs.

From 2009 to 2014, he filled in as leader of the opposition in India’s upper house of Parliament.

Arun Jaitley reliably completed a portion of Narendra Modi’s more controversial economic initiatives, including tax and welfare changes and overnight demonetization — which removed 86% of the money from circulation, leaving hundreds of millions of individuals temporarily without funds.

In February this year, Arun Jaitley declared a government budget with a string of populist giveaways, from moderate housing to a health plan for many needy individuals, trying to charm voters ahead of last spring’s election.

India’s stock market took a hit after Arun Jaitley declared a 10% tax on some long-term capital gains, saying stock market returns were “quite attractive and it was time to bring them under the ambit of capital gains tax.”

Despite the fact that India was the world’s fastest-growing economy in 2018, it has begun to lose steam. The Department of Economic Affairs announced that economic growth eased back in 2018-2019, to under 7% in the latest quarter from 8% in mid-2018, hobbled by consumer demand, powerless development in investment and drooping exports.