Former union minister Arun Jaitley cremated with full state honours at Delhi's Nigambodh Ghat 

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, Kapil Sibal and other well-wishers present at Nigambodh Ghat in Delhi at Arun Jaitley's last rites   

 Arun Jaitley's last rites 

Senior BJP leaders present at Nigambodh Ghat where Arun Jaitley's last rites are to be held.

Well-wishers present at Nigambodh Ghat to pay last respects to the BJP leader

Arun Jaitley's mortal remains reach the Nigambodh Ghat 

Union Home Minister Amit Shah and National Working President of BJP, JP Nadda, pay respects to former Union Minister Arun Jaitley at party HQ

Arun Jaitley passed away on August 24 at 12:07 hours. The mortal remains of former finance minister Arun Jaitley were on Sunday morning brought to the BJP headquarters for his admirers and followers to pay their last respects. The 66-year-old passed away at the AIIMS on Saturday. He was undergoing treatment at the hospital, where he was admitted on August 9. His body was brought to the BJP headquarters located on the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg from his Kailash Colony residence. The body will be taken to the Nigambodh Ghat on the banks of the Yamuna river for performing the last rites around 2.30 pm with full State honours, a senior BJP leader said.

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Tributes paid to Arun Jaitley at BJP Headquarters

Outside the party office, people chanted "Jab tak suraj chand rahega Jaitley tera naam rahega" (Your name will endure as long as the Sun and the Moon exist)" and 'Jaitley ji amar rahe' (You live long forever). BJP workers and mourners are queued up in large numbers outside the party headquarters to pay their last respects to the leader. On Saturday, the body was kept at his residence where President Ram Nath Kovind, BJP president Amit Shah and several leaders across the political spectrum offered floral tributes to the former Union minister. Shah on Saturday said Jaitley was a crusader against corruption and credited him for taking the Jan Dhan Yojana to the masses, demonetisation and the successful implementation of the GST.

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Arun Jaitley and his career

Born in Delhi on December 28, 1952, Arun Jaitley studied at the St Xavier's school and went on to graduate with a degree in commerce from the Shri Ram College of Commerce in 1973, and went on to pursue an LLB at the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. At that time, he is also said to have considered becoming a Chartered Accountant. Active in politics since his time as a student, Jaitley was a member of the ABVP, and served as the President of the Delhi University Students Union in 1974. Like a number of his contemporaries in the BJP, Jaitley was put under preventive custody for fighting the Emergency as part of the JP movement, the clampdown on him lasting 19 months. 

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He rose to become the president of the Delhi ABVP and its All India Secretary, He became the president of the youth wing of the Jan Sangh which he had joined later. Parallel to his political commitments, Jaitley also practiced law, before the Supreme Court and numerous High Courts. He was appointed ASG in the VP Singh government in 1989, and has also appeared in several corporate matters. He stopped practicing law only in June 2009 on becoming leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. In the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government, he had served as the minister for Law and Justice.

He is best known for having served as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs in the first Narendra Modi government, has also held portfolios of Defence and Information and Broadcasting. It was Jaitley who rolled out the GST in 2017 which saw India becoming a unified market for goods and services for the first time, and was also the first chairman of the GST council, is widely credited for forging consensus leading to the Constitutional amendment that eventually passed the GST Bill.
Jaitley opted out of the second Narendra Modi government, having gone to the US for two spells of treatment for a medical ailment in 2018-19. He has, however, regularly taken to Facebook and Twitter to pen blogs on various significant issues in the country.

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PM Modi's emotional tribute to Arun Jaitley

Addressing the Indian diaspora in Bahrain, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, gave former Finance Minister late Arun Jaitley an emotional tribute. He shared that while the world is celebrating Janmashtami on this day, he was reeling from the personal loss of a friend. Reminiscing their journey together, PM Modi broke down while remembering the many dreams Jaitley and himself had seen for India. He also expressed sorrow at not being able to be in Delhi where his colleague Jaitley breathed his last. "As the world is celebrating Janmashtami, I am experiencing great pain within me. Since the time I was a student, I shared my political career and my dreams with my friend. At all times we were together and planned our political journey. India's former Defence Minister and Finance Minister- Arun Jaitley left his mortal life today. I cannot imagine that I am so far away when one of my friends passed away," he said.

PM Modi pays an emotional tribute to friend Arun Jaitley in Bahrain