Jaitley took charge as India's top economic official in 2014, following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's victory in an election where he promised to boost growth and create millions of jobs.
Jaitley repeatedly defended the move as essential to cracking down on tax evasion and promoting digital payments, calling it a"watershed moment" that Indians would look back on with pride even as businesses continued to struggle a year later. "The old India was economically fragmented. The new India will create one tax, one market and for one nation," Jaitley said when the reform was passed by parliament.
Jaitley's deteriorating health — he had a kidney transplant in May 2018 — forced him to opt out of Modi's second government a year later, shortly after the Indian leader won re-election by a landslide.