December 28th 2021, marks the 69th birth anniversary of the former finance minister Arun Jaitley.
A key BJP leader and a crucial member of the party's brain trust for decades, Jaitley was an articulate champion of the saffron party's policies and ideology, and his warm personality and affable manners won him friends across the political spectrum.
Born on 28th December 1952 in Delhi, Jaitley first became a Cabinet minister in the government of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000. He then went on to serve as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha from June 2009. He was appointed the finance minister in the first term of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government in 2014. He opted out of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections citing health reasons.
Jaitley breath his last on 24th August 2019 in New Delhi when he was 66.
Here are some rare pictures of the former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley:
Arun Jaitley (3R) after being elected Delhi University Students' Union president in 1974 in New Delhi. | (File Photo | PTI)
Arun Jaitley (3L) during an ABVP event. | (Photo | Monica Choudhary, ABVP)
BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi hugs Narendra Modi, while Arun Jaitley looks on, before the oath taking ceremony of Modi as Gujarat Chief Minister at Sardar Patel stadium in Ahmedabad in 2007. | PTI
BJP leader Arun Jaitley greets newly wedded couple Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar at their reception party in New Delhi in 2010. | File Photo/PTI
Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad and BJP general secretary, Arun Jaitley during all party delegation to discuss the unrelenting violence in Jammu. | (File Photo | PTI)
Then Union Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi. | (File Photo | PTI)
Then Union Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley with Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie in New Delhi. | (File Photo | PTI)
Then BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley addresses party supporters during an election campaign for East Delhi candidate in Delhi. | (File Photo | PTI)
Then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa presents a bouquet to Arun Jaitley at a meeting in New Delhi in June 2014. | (File Photo | PTI)
PM Narendra Modi with former PM Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during President Pranab Mukherjee's address to the joint session of Parliament in New Delhi on 09/06/2014. | (File Photo | PTI)
Senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj with party leader Arun Jaitley addressing a press conference in New Delhi in 2010. | (File Photo | PTI)
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley speaks in the Lok Sabha in New Delhi. | (File Photo | PTI)
Union Minister Arun Jaitley with BJP senior leader LK Advani and AICC President Sonia Gandhi at an event to pay tribute to former PM Indira Gandhi on her birth anniversary at Parliament House in New Delhi on 19/11/2016. | (File Photo | PTI)
Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera, left, escorts Indian counterpart Arun Jaitley, right, to inspect an honor guard at Defense Ministry in Tokyo on 05/09/2017. | (File Photo | PTI)
