Andhra Pradesh: BJP leaders pay homage to Arun Jaitley

Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh) [India], Aug 24 (ANI): The BJP state unit here organised a program to condole the demise of former finance minister and senior party leader Arun Jaitley on Saturday.
"Arun Jaitley's demise is a great loss to the party and the country. He was a great politician and a wonderful human being," said party leader Piyush Desai at the program.
BJP Andhra Pradesh President Kanna Lakshminarayana could not attend the event as he along with some other party leaders had already left for New Delhi after the news of Jaitley's death.
Other BJP leaders including Adduri Sriram and party corporator Uttam Singh Bhandari also spoke at the event expressing their grief on the demise of the senior party leader.
"He was a great economic reformer and a wonderful human being," Sriram said at the program here.
The leaders also observed one minute of silence in his memory.
Jaitley passed away in New Delhi at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). He was 66.
A four-time member of Rajya Sabha, he became a Cabinet minister in the government of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000. He was Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha from June 2009 to 2014.
Jaitley was Finance and Corporate Affairs minister in the first term of Modi government and also held portfolios of Defence and Information and Broadcasting. (ANI)