New Delhi: Arun Jaitley resumed Friday his charge as the Finance Minister after a gap of over a month, which was the second break within a year that he had to take to undergo medical treatment.
“The President of India, as advised by the Prime Minister, has directed to assign the portfolios of the Minister of Finance and Minister of Corporate Affairs to Arun Jaitley,” an official statement said Friday.
Jaitley tweeted: “Resumed work at the Ministry of Finance today (Friday). Thankful to Shri Piyush Goyal who discharged the responsibility at the MoF diligently & competently.”
Jaitley, 66, who last week returned from the US after undergoing medical treatment, first attended the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called to discuss the terror attack in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district. He then came to the North Block – the seat of the Finance Ministry.
Sources said he underwent a surgery in the US on January 22 for a reported soft tissue cancer in his left leg. He returned February 9 to India after undergoing skin grafting. Jaitley, they said, is recovering well but needs a stick for support to stand or sit down and walks with a slight limp.
It should be mentioned here that Jaitley had undergone a kidney transplant surgery May 14, 2018, at AIIMS here and had not travelled abroad since then. He had stopped attending office at the beginning of April last year due to his kidney ailment and was back in North Block, August 23, 2018. Even then, Goyal had manned the ministry for about 100 days.
PTI