Forty minutes into delivering his maiden budget in the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asked for a five-minute break. His back was hurting; he leaned on the lectern for support. After the break, he resumed his two-hour speech but remained seated. The 61-year-old Supreme Court lawyer was exhausted, saddled as he was with two major portfolios―finance and defence. Sources say the minister, who is diabetic, has been so overworked that he fell asleep during two government briefings.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chief strategist, loyalist and key aide, Jaitley is touted as the real No. 2 in the new government. He is Modi’s “go-to guy”, said a BJP leader. He endeared himself to Modi by defending him in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots. “He incurred the wrath of the BJP's big four―A.B. Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Venkaiah Naidu―when he defended Modi,” said a friend of Jaitley's. During his Lok Sabha campaign in Amritsar, Jaitley told THE WEEK: “We have been close associates for a long time. We do respect each other. He [Modi] and I have a comfortable relationship.”
Jaitley’s loss to Capt. Amarinder Singh of the Congress may have taken some sheen off, but it didn’t corrode his standing within the party. “The decision to field him from Amritsar was tactically wrong and he shouldn’t have believed the Akalis, who were facing anti-incumbency in Punjab,” said a Jaitley aide.
He was born to Maharaj Kishen Jaitley, a lawyer from Lahore, and Ratan Prabha, from Amritsar, and the family moved to Delhi after Partition. Jaitley studied in St Xavier’s School and subsequently joined Shri Ram College of Commerce. A keen debater, he won several accolades, including St Stephen’s College's prestigious C.F. Andrews Trophy for Debate. He then studied law and was president of the Delhi University Students Union. During the Emergency, he spent 19 months in jail, which drew the attention of senior party leaders. “I was surprised at the courage and fortitude with which he handled jail, believing that it was something every young person must go through,” said Raian Karanjawala, senior advocate and founder of Karanjawala and Co., who met Jaitley while in college.
But the game-changer for Jaitley came when he challenged Indira Gandhi’s decision to demolish the Indian Express building in Delhi. “That case brought a lot of people together. We met Arun Shourie, Ramnath Goenka and S. Gurumurthy,” said Karanjawala, who fought the case with Jaitley. He became India’s youngest additional solicitor general in the V.P. Singh government at the age of 37.
In the National Democratic Alliance government, Jaitley held the commerce and industry, disinvestment and law and justice ministries between 1999 and 2004. During his eight-month tenure as disinvestment minister, Jaitley faced a few roadblocks. Disinvestment, or selling off government stake in public sector companies, failed to achieve the Rs 10,000 crore target, with the government raising only about Rs 1,800 crore. Stake sales in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd were challenged in the Supreme Court on grounds that the government had no authority to disinvest without Parliament nod.
This time around though, there is no slipping up. Disinvesting of state-owned firms is high on the government’s agenda, which would help narrow the fiscal deficit. Jaitley has already cleared the divestment of residual government stake in Hindustan Zinc Ltd and Balco. Considered industry-friendly, he had earlier represented behemoths such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. That, however, has not prevented him from imposing “an additional duty of excise at 5 per cent on aerated waters containing added sugar”. In 2003, he strongly argued for the rights of farmers from India and other developing nations at the World Trade Organisation meet in Cancun, Mexico. The European Union and the US were also compelled to reduce subsidies to their farm sectors and exporters to protect the interests of developing nations.
The astute politician, who never misses his early morning walks, has a softer side, too. He loves old Hindi films like Waqt, Punjabi plays on Pakistani channels and dinner parties and has friends across party lines. Congress leaders Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the late Madhavrao Scindia and party colleague N.K. Singh have been close friends. “He has three passions―food, cricket and conversation,” said Suhel Seth, marketing consultant and managing partner of Counselage India, who became friends with Jaitley while building the Vajpayee brand ahead of the 1999 Lok Sabha polls. His love for Indian food is so strong that once in Switzerland he took a train and then a cab to eat Indian food. A nephew in London carries bags of curries, naan and paranthas every time Jaitley is in town. Not many know that the man, who has three dogs in his Kailash Colony residence in South Delhi, is scared of dogs.
Jaitley’s official residence at 9 Ashoka Road has been loaned to the BJP and RSS leaders, and his friends use the lawns to host weddings free of cost. Jaitley’s generosity is enjoyed by staffers, who have remained loyal to him over the years. “Ten per cent of every lawyer’s fee is known as clerkage. His clerkage always went as corpus for his staff,” said Seth. He has paid for the education of each staff member and even helped in buying a middle-income group apartment. “His stenographer’s daughter is working abroad after completing her studies in the US at his cost,” said Seth.
On the eve of the budget session, Jaitley, in an informal chat with reporters, said that he considered Manmohan Singh’s 1991 budget a watershed one. He had also called on Singh last week. Jaitley, too, finds himself at similar crossroads; the ailing economy urgently needs a shot in the arm. His task has only just begun.
