Arun Jaitley, the man who brought India under one-tax regime

Former finance minister and BJP stalwart Arun Jaitley was unlike any other minister in the Modi cabinet. The suave lawmaker, with a long experience in both matters legal and political, was someone Prime Minister Narendra Modi actively relied on for sound policymaking.

After a long and protracted battle with cancer, Arun Jaitley passed away at the age of 66 on Saturday.

In 2017, during the peak of the Gujarat elections, Arun Jaitley received a call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a blog the former had written on the insolvency law the day before. The blog post, The Fiction of Loan Waiver to Capitalists, sought to counter the criticism that the government could waive loans of capitalists. The PM was obviously intrigued by the FM's arguments and wanted him to elaborate.

READ | Arun Jaitley passes away at 66

Arun Jaitley was a loyal Bharatiya Janata Party worker and served the party well in many regards, He was in-charge of key elections, one of the few to be consulted on cabinet reshuffles, the only minister to be given two heavyweight portfolios in the first Modi cabinet (he handled both finance and defence) and, most importantly, the man at the forefront of reforms that formed the cornerstone of the first term of the Narendra Modi-led government.

At the height of his tenure as finance minister, Arun Jaitley braved many storms. Whether it was expanding Aadhaar to other services, rationalising subsidies to reach targeted users, driving consensus on the Goods and Services Tax (GST), managing the tailwinds of demonetisation, or powering the $32.43 billion bank recapitalisation plan, there have been no easy days for Arun Jaitley.

Those in the North Block have heaped many praises on Arun Jaitley, especially for his ability to work with the bureaucracy and to always keep the big picture in mind.

Arun Jaitley brought to the finance ministry his exceptional negotiation skills -- perfected through years of practice as a lawyer.

Jaitley pushed through India's singlemost important tax reform since Independence, bringing the country under a unified tax regime, even if its implementation left much to be desired.

In December 2017, while negotiating the GST with the empowered committee of state finance ministers, he followed a give-and-take strategy, a key official present at the meeting told India Today that Jaitley at no point deviated from the non-negotiables, but at the same time was open to finding a way out.