Delhi’s quintessential insider who reached across the aisle
He wore many hats and was the BJP leader who had friends in all parties
25/08/2019, NISTULA HEBBAR,NEW DELHI
Former Union Minister Arun Jaitley wore many hats in public life — politician, lawyer, cricket administrator, raconteur and the quintessential Delhi insider who loved to hold court with his legion of friends and acquaintances in banter and good humour. For the BJP, he was an affable public face who articulated the party line best, in Hindi and English.
As a member of the Ministries of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi, he emerged as a dependable colleague of the Prime Minister.
For many who knew him personally, his warm interpersonal interactions across party lines and his many, now legendary stories on the who’s who of Lutyens’ Delhi marked him out as a social force quite apart from his political heft.
Mr. Jaitley, 66, shot to fame during the struggle against the Emergency in 1975, after being elected president of the Delhi University Students’ Union in 1974 as a member of the RSS- affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. One of the first to have been arrested in the crackdown on political activists, he stayed in jail for 19 months. He joined the BJP in 1980.
His early career in the BJP saw a steady rise, including an amalgamation of his legal career with his political one. In 1989, he was appointed Additional Solicitor-General by the V.P. Singh government and did much of the paper work for the legal case on the Bofors scame. He held many important portfolios in the Vajpayee government from 1999, including those of Law and Justice, Shipping, Information and Broadcasting and Commerce and Industry. In the Modi government too, he held many portfolios, including Finance, Defence, Corporate Affairs and Information and Broadcasting, though he lost the only Lok Sabha election he ever contested, from Amristar, in 2014.
GST regime
As Finance Minister, his achievements include the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. He was at the helm when the controversial decision to demonetise high-value currency notes was taken in November 2016. While Mr. Jaitley did his best to steer the ship, the event did not pass as well as he could have wished.
His popularity, however, was never as high as when he was the BJP spokesperson from 2002 (along with being a general secretary), and his briefings to the media and setting down of the party line for every major issue continued till the 2019 Lok Sabha election. His skills as a raconteur made his briefings an interesting affair always.
Among the most repeated stories by him was the advice given to him by Delhi’s then Chief Executive Councillor Jag Pravesh Chandra in the 1980s. He told a young Jaitley to never set down any difference of opinion with his own party in writing, no angry letters or written sulks — something Mr. Jaitley said he followed. He said it only proved that one’s opinion was not taken seriously in one’s own party.
The years Mr. Jaitley spent as Leader of the Opposition between 2009 and 2014 were important not only for his emergence as an orator and important mover behind the women’s reservation and Lokpal Bills but also for his championing of the cause of now Prime Minister Modi. As much as Mr. Modi was the Delhi outsider, Mr. Jaitley was the man with the inside view, having done his schooling (St. Xavier’s) and higher education (Sriram College of Commerce and Law Faculty, Delhi University) in the city. He leaves behind his wife, Sangita, son, Rohan, and daughter, Sonali, and legions of friends.
He wore many hats and was the BJP leader who had friends in all parties
25/08/2019, NISTULA HEBBAR,NEW DELHI
Former Union Minister Arun Jaitley wore many hats in public life — politician, lawyer, cricket administrator, raconteur and the quintessential Delhi insider who loved to hold court with his legion of friends and acquaintances in banter and good humour. For the BJP, he was an affable public face who articulated the party line best, in Hindi and English.
As a member of the Ministries of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi, he emerged as a dependable colleague of the Prime Minister.
For many who knew him personally, his warm interpersonal interactions across party lines and his many, now legendary stories on the who’s who of Lutyens’ Delhi marked him out as a social force quite apart from his political heft.
Mr. Jaitley, 66, shot to fame during the struggle against the Emergency in 1975, after being elected president of the Delhi University Students’ Union in 1974 as a member of the RSS- affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. One of the first to have been arrested in the crackdown on political activists, he stayed in jail for 19 months. He joined the BJP in 1980.
His early career in the BJP saw a steady rise, including an amalgamation of his legal career with his political one. In 1989, he was appointed Additional Solicitor-General by the V.P. Singh government and did much of the paper work for the legal case on the Bofors scame. He held many important portfolios in the Vajpayee government from 1999, including those of Law and Justice, Shipping, Information and Broadcasting and Commerce and Industry. In the Modi government too, he held many portfolios, including Finance, Defence, Corporate Affairs and Information and Broadcasting, though he lost the only Lok Sabha election he ever contested, from Amristar, in 2014.
GST regime
As Finance Minister, his achievements include the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. He was at the helm when the controversial decision to demonetise high-value currency notes was taken in November 2016. While Mr. Jaitley did his best to steer the ship, the event did not pass as well as he could have wished.
His popularity, however, was never as high as when he was the BJP spokesperson from 2002 (along with being a general secretary), and his briefings to the media and setting down of the party line for every major issue continued till the 2019 Lok Sabha election. His skills as a raconteur made his briefings an interesting affair always.
Among the most repeated stories by him was the advice given to him by Delhi’s then Chief Executive Councillor Jag Pravesh Chandra in the 1980s. He told a young Jaitley to never set down any difference of opinion with his own party in writing, no angry letters or written sulks — something Mr. Jaitley said he followed. He said it only proved that one’s opinion was not taken seriously in one’s own party.
The years Mr. Jaitley spent as Leader of the Opposition between 2009 and 2014 were important not only for his emergence as an orator and important mover behind the women’s reservation and Lokpal Bills but also for his championing of the cause of now Prime Minister Modi. As much as Mr. Modi was the Delhi outsider, Mr. Jaitley was the man with the inside view, having done his schooling (St. Xavier’s) and higher education (Sriram College of Commerce and Law Faculty, Delhi University) in the city. He leaves behind his wife, Sangita, son, Rohan, and daughter, Sonali, and legions of friends.
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