- By Aalok Sensharma
- Sat, 24 Aug 2019 01:43 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
New Delhi | Jagran News Desk: Arun Jaitley was an Indian politician and a senior member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was the Union Finance Minister through the Narendra Modi led BJP government's first term in power at the Centre. Previously, he held positions of Defence Minister, Corporate Affairs, Commerce and Industry, Law and Justice, Cabinet portfolios etc.
No doubt, when Arun Jaitley was the Finance Minister, Modi Government was able to take some crucial economic initiatives like demonetisation and implementation of the Goods and Service Tax (GST).
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How we can forget that during Jaitley's supervision, the Modi government merged the Railway Budget with the General Budget. Also, the decision of advancing the date of the general budget to 1 February was taken with the finance minister Arun Jaitley. For resolving the issues with companies, he introduced insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. In recent times, IBC played a crucial role in the corporate sector.
Here are some political achievements of Arun Jaitley as a lawmaker:
- As a Law Minister, he brought several electoral and judicial reforms. He set up Advocates Welfare Fund and Investor Protection Fund.
- He implemented the scheme of setting up of the Fast Track Courts and also paid special attention to the computerisation of the courts.
- He brought amendments in the Motor Vehicles Act and the Negotiable Instruments Act to facilitate the expeditious disposal of cases.
- The High Courts of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand were inaugurated under his guidance.
- In 2002, he successfully introduced the 84th amendment of the Constitution of India for freezing parliamentary seats till 2026.
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- For penalising defection, in 2004 he successfully introduced 91st amendments to the Constitution of India.
- Played an important role as a strategic planner for the BJP in eight Assembly elections.
- In Gujarat, 2002 General Assembly elections, he helped his party colleague Narendra Modi to grab 126 seats out of 182.
- In 2007 again he helped Modi to come back to power by winning 117 seats out of 182 in Gujarat.
- He managed the Assembly election in Madhya Pradesh and won along Uma Bharti in 2003.
- In 2004, he specifically put in charge in Karnataka and at the same time in Assembly election, BJP won 18 out of 26 Lok Sabha seats and captured 83 seats in the assembly elections and emerged as the largest party.
- He was appointed as the general secretary in charge of elections to MCD of Delhi in 2007 in which BJP won 184 out of 272.
Currently, he was serving as a member of Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh. Since 26 May 2014, he was a Minister in the Cabinet led Narendra Modi's government. From May 2014 to May 2019, he was the Minister of Finance and Minister of Corporate Affairs. He was a Minister of defence in 2014 and 2017 and Minister of Information and Broadcasting in the Government of India from 2014 to 2016.
