Former Finance Minister and ex-BCCI vice-president Arun Jaitley passed away on Saturday, 24 August. Earlier in the day, AIIMS released a statement announcing that Former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had passed away on Saturday, August 24, 2019, after being admitted to AIIMS in New Delhi on August 9. In the press release, AIIMS stated, “It is with profound grief that we inform about the sad demise of Shri Arun Jaitley, Hon’ble Member of Parliament & Former Finance Minister, Government of India at 12:07 pm on 24th August 2019. He was 66 at the time of death. His passing marks the loss of a second BJP veteran after Sushma Swaraj. 

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Men in Blue to pay tributes to Arun Jaitley

The Indian cricket team will wear black armbands in its Test match against West Indies in order to pay tribute to and condole the unfortunate demise of former Union Minister Arun Jaitley. The former Finance Minister was also the president of the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) and also served as the vice-president of the BCCI. Former cricketers and members of the fraternity flocked to condole the death of the senior BJP leader, as many cricketers from Delhi remembered the contributions of Arun Jaitley to the DDCA and in helping the players find a place in the national team. Former cricketers Gautam Gambhir, Aakash Chopra, Virender Sehwag took to Twitter to condole Arun Jaitley's death. The BCCI condoled the demise of its ex vice-president and prayed for the departed soul. Read BCCI's tweet here:

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Arun Jaitley's political 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.  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.

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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 the 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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