Today, August 24, marks a year since former finance minister Arun Jaitley passed away. The former finance minister died on August 24, 2019. He was 66.
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.
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.
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. | Photo Credit: PTI
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. | Photo Credit: PTI
BJP leader Arun Jaitley greets newly wedded couple Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar at their reception party in New Delhi in 2010. | Photo Credit: 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. | Photo Credit: PTI
Then Union Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: PTI
Then Union Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley with Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: PTI
Then BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley addresses party supporters during an election campaign for East Delhi candidate in Delhi. | Photo Credit: PTI
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa presents a bouquet to Arun Jaitley at a meeting in New Delhi in June 2014. | Photo Credit: 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. | Photo Credit: PTI
Senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj with party leader Arun Jaitley addressing a press conference in New Delhi in 2010. Swaraj, also former Union Minister and party stalwart passed away earlier this month. | Photo Credit: 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. | Photo Credit: PTI
