Politicians across the aisle pay last respects to ex-FM
New Delhi: Several senior party workers, Cabinet and Union Ministers, Chief Ministers of other states, and people closely related to the party and Arun Jaitley, bid the former Finance Minister an emotional goodbye throughout the day on Sunday. In addition to Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani and Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar; Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das, and LJD leader Sharad Yadav were at the party headquarters to pay their last respects to Jaitley.
BJP leaders Madhav Rao and Shivraj Singh Chauhan had earlier arrived at Jaitley's Kailash Colony residence along with Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and an envoy from the UK, who said that many in Britain treasured Jaitley. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal also paid their last respects at the residence. The former Andhra Pradesh CM and TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu was also at the residence along with Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla, who called Jaitley a great speaker and parliamentarian.
Union Ministers Amit Shah, Harsh Vardhan, Rajnath Singh and Piyush Goyal, Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das and Bharatiya Janata Party National Working President J P Nadda were among those who paid homage to the departed leader at the party headquarters.
LJD leader Sharad Yadav, who had often locked horns with Jaitley in Parliament, was also at the party headquarters. Former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and a Bhutanese envoy from the embassy in Delhi also visited the party headquarters.
The cremation was attended by Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Rajnath Singh, Prakash Javadekar, Smriti Irani, Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. Also present were BJP veteran LK Advani as well as other party leaders including B S Yediyurappa, Gautam Gambhir, along with opposition leaders Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel, who said, "He (Jaitley) was one of the last few great parliamentarians in the country."
