Former Finance Minister Aun Jaitley passed away on Saturday at the age of 66. Indian cricketing fraternity condoled the untimely demise of former Finance Minister and senior BJP leader. Arun Jaitley's unfortunate demise marks the end of an extraordinary career that has witnessed him holding incredibly important positions at various levels, both in the government and outside. On the day Arun Jaitley was admitted to AIIMS, the hospital had issued a statement saying that he was being given treatment in the ICU under a multidisciplinary team of doctors and that at that point he was hemodynamically stable.

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After the sad as well as an untimely demise of Arun Jaitley, cricketers from DDCA, the Indian team, and even the BCCI came forward to offer their last respects to the former Finance Minister. The cricketers included the likes of Anil Kumble, Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar. Even Ravi Shastri came forward to pay tribute to Arun Jaitley. 

Ravi Shastri hails Arun Jaitley as 'A man with the highest integrity quotient'

Team India head coach, Ravi Shastri came forward and offered his heartfelt condolences to the family & loved ones of Shri Arun Jaitley Ji. Ravi Shastri from his experience then hailed the former Finance Minister as 'a man with the highest integrity quotient'. Shastri then added that his thoughts are with Arun Jaitley's family in this time of grief. 

READ: Virat Kohli Hails 'Good Person' Arun Jaitley, Shares Moving 2006 Visit

Read Ravi Shastri's tweet here:

Arun Jaitley: 'The BJP stalwart'

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 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, being 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.

READ: Arun Jaitley Passes Away: BCCI Pays Rich Tribute