After days of speculations, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday confirmed that he would not be a part of the Narendra Modi-led government this time.
In a letter to Modi, Jaitley spoke about the healthchallenges that he is facing and referred to the oral communication that he hadwith the Prime Minister after the campaign in this regard. Though he was ableto discharge the responsibilities assigned during the campaign, he would liketo take a break, he said. “I would in future, for some time, like to keep awayfrom any responsibility. This will enable me to concentrate on my treatment andhealth,” he added.
He further said: “I am writing to you to formally requestyou that I should be allowed a reasonable time for myself, my treatment and myhealth and therefore not be part of any responsibility, for the present, in thenew government.”
He assured that he would obviously have a lot of time at hisdisposal to undertake any work informally to support the government or theparty.
Earlier, sources had revealed that Jaitley, 66, was unlikelytake up any offer to continue in the top job as his health has deterioratedover the past few months. Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the LokSabha election 2019 with a historic mandate of about 300 out of 542parliamentary seats that were contested, results announced by the ElectionCommission of India (ECI) on May 23 showed.
On Monday, the government had dismissed reports about hishealth condition as ‘false and baseless’. BJP leaders asked the media to avoid”rumour mongering”.
The last one-and-a-half years have been very challenging forJaitley. After a bariatric surgery in 2014, his health was okay till April2018. However, after that, he stopped coming to the office due to a renalproblem and underwent a kidney transplant on May 14, 2018. After a gap of fourmonths, he resumed duty as Finance Minister on August 23, 2018. Again, earlythis year, he went to the US for a surgery and came back during the second weekof February. On both the occasions, Piyush Goyal was given charge of theFinance Ministry and he also presented the interim Budget.
Modi calls on Jaitley
Late the evening, Modi met Jaitley at his residence. Thoughit is not clear what transpired in the meeting, it is believed that Modi askedJaitley to reconsider his decision.