The importance of being Arun Jaitley

Prime Minister Narendra Modi towers over his Cabinet with his work profile including “all important policy issues and all other portfolios not allocated to any minister”.

The closest anyone gets is his longstanding ally in Delhi: Arun Jaitley, Minister for Finance, Corporate Affairs and Defence.

In some ways, Modi and Jaitley can be compared to Atal Behari Vajpayee and his deputy LK Advani in the BJP dispensation of yore.

The nuances of the two relationships are very different, though.

Vajpayee and Advani shared an uneasy relationship despite Advani’s claims of having watched movies and enjoyed chaat together in their younger days.

Modi and Jaitley are not in competition.

Indeed, Jaitley has, for long, accepted a junior role to Modi and collaborated, rather than competed, with the new Prime Minister.

The urbane Jaitley provides the perfect foil to Modi’s aloof “outsider” image.

The lawyer is also a critical asset in the government with his formidable clout in the higher echelons of the media, judiciary, bureaucracy and big business.

There are very few leaders in the BJP with Jaitley’s understanding of issues, policy and the Constitutional framework

At once sharp and affable, Jaitley, along with Sushma Swaraj and Pramod Mahajan, is among the most popular leaders groomed by Advani in the 1990s.

After Mahajan passed away, Jaitley acquired the mantle of the BJP’s chief strategist, managing several Assembly polls and the 2009 general elections.

He was also among the few friends Modi had in Delhi. Jaitley defended Modi stoutly when the latter came under fire post-Godhra, both from the media as well as the political class.

The most critical juncture in the Jaitley-Modi relationship came when Vajpayee wanted to sack Modi after the Gujarat riots.

Along with Advani, Jaitley pre-empted Vajpayee’s move to edge Modi out in a tension-filled meeting of the party’s national executive in April 2002.

Jaitley flew to Gujarat and travelled with Modi to the national executive meeting in Goa where, before Vajpayee could proceed, Modi offered to quit only to be rejected vociferously by the gathering.

Jaitley’s long-standing understanding with Modi is one of the reasons the new Prime Minister has entrusted him with important portfolios despite his losing the Lok Sabha election in Amritsar.

A product of the anti-Emergency movement while he was studying in Shri Ram College of Commerce and later pursuing a law degree at Delhi University, Jaitley is a family man with possibly the largest circle of friends in Delhi.

Undoubtedly, next to Modi, he is the most high-profile leader in the Cabinet.