New Delhi, August 25: Arun Jaitley, former finance minister and a stalwart of the Bharatiya Janata Party, was given a tearful farewell with full state honours on Sunday. His mortal remains were consigned to flames at Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat, as his family members and prominent people from various fields braved heavy rains to bid him adieu.
Arun Jaitley’s son Rohan Jaitley performed the last rites of the former Union minister, who passed away on Saturday afternoon after a prolonged illness.
The BJP top brass including Amit Shah, LK Advani, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani, Nirmala Sitharaman, and others attended the funeral. The former finance minister passed away at the age of 66 at the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences, New Delhi on Saturday.
He was admitted to the AIIMS earlier this month after he complained of breathlessness. He was placed under observation at the hospital’s Cardio-Neuro-Centre. Earlier in the day, the body of Jaitley was brought to the BJP headquarters in Rouse Avenue from his South Delhi house in a vehicle adorned with white flowers with huge life-size portraits of the leader both at the front and back.
Remembering Jaitley, BJP supporters walking with the vehicle chanted ‘Jab tak sooraj chand rahega, Jaitley tera naam rahega‘ (Your name will be alive as long as sun and moon are there). On Saturday evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid an emotional tribute to Jaitley, saying he cannot imagine that he was far away from India in Bahrain while his “dear friend” and party colleague passed away in New Delhi.
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