(News18)
Arun Jaitley, the former finance minister and a stalwart of the Bharatiya Janata Party, passed away on Saturday at AIIMS hospital in New Delhi. He was 66. AIIMS hospital also issued a statement on Arun Jaitley’s death. As per the statement, “It is with profound grief that we inform about the sad demise of Shri Arun Jaitley, Hon’ble Member of Parliament and former Finance Minister Government of India at 12:07 pm on August 24, 2019. Arun Jaitley was admitted in AIIMS, New Delhi on 09/08/2019 and was treated by a multidisciplinary team of senior Doctors.”
He did not contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections after he underwent a surgery in January in the United States reportedly for soft tissue cancer, and subsequently opted to sit out of the 2019 Modi cabinet.
Jaitley had undergone a renal transplant in May last year and did not attend office from April 2018 to August 23, 2018. During both these instances minister Piyush Goyal filled in for him.
