Arun Jaitley undergoing cancer treatment?

NPnewsOnline NEW DELHI: After the cancer breeze hit Bollywood, its politics turn. Finance Minister, 66, Arun Jaitley unexpectedly left for the US for treatment of soft tissue cancer in his thigh, a type of tumour which can spread to other parts of the body quickly.

Unlikely to be in the capital to present the government’s interim budget will last before the Lok Sabha elections on February 1 as he has developed another serious ailment for which he will likely undergo surgery in the United States.

Sources said the decision to undergo surgery was a complicated one because Jaitley had undergone a kidney transplant last year in April. Any fresh surgery, accompanied by chemotherapy, would be a strain on the kidneys, which are still in the process of being accepted by his body.

On the other side, officially, the finance minister has said he is going on personal leave for two weeks to New York.

Whereas, a close aide said that there was a possibility that the hospital would be unable to conduct the required surgery and discharge him quickly, given all the pre-existing complications post the kidney transplant.

In that case, it is unclear who will make the budget announcements in the absence of Jaitley. On May 14, 2018, Jaitley underwent a renal surgery and was out of the finance ministry for nearly 100-days. During this period, Railway and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal was given additional charge of the finance ministry.

He had stopped attending office at the beginning of April 2018 and had even cancelled a scheduled attendance at the 10th India-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue in London.

Jaitley returned as Finance Minister on August 23, 2018, and during the next few months limited public interaction to ward off any infection.

Now, Modi government is gearing up for what could be a crucial vote-on-account. It is reportedly planning important pre-election measures such as a universal income transfer scheme for farmers on the lines of Rythu Bandhu in Telangana.

There is also talk of interest-free bank loans to small farmers with the government bearing the interest burden and raising the exemption limit for income tax-payers.