Tweets show how much he missed politics

New Delhi, August 24 

Arun Jaitley may have been battling with prolonged illness, but nothing could keep him away from taking part in the political discourse. Till the time he was admitted back to the AIIMS where he breathed his last on Saturday, Jaitley continued tweeting.

His last tweet came on August 7 when he paid his tributes for Tulsidas Jayanti before tweeting how heartbroken he was at the demise of his Cabinet colleague Sushma Swaraj, who passed away at the AIIMS following a cardiac arrest on August 6.

But it was his series of tweets on August 6 on the abrogation of Article 370 that prove how much he missed politics. In a thread of 10 tweets, Jaitley congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for axing Article 370.

“PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah achieved the Impossible with the new Kashmir policy. In my blog today, I have analysed the impact of this decision, and history of failed attempts on resolving the J&K issue,” the ailing former Finance Minister had said.

Elaborating on the way J&K was heading, Jaitley said, “The J&K history of the past seven decades shows that the journey of this separate status has been towards separatism and not integration. It created a separatist psyche. Pakistan was more than enthusiastic in trying to exploit the situation.”

He had said, “The historic blunders of special status had cost the country politically and financially. Today, when history is being re-written, it proves that Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee's vision on Kashmir was the correct one and Panditji's dream solution has proved to be a failure.” The tweets also show his deep-rooted ideological bent towards the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) whose students’ wing was his first political platform.

“In the last seven decades, attempts to resolve the issue proved a disaster, PM Modi decided to follow an alternative approach. The present decision makes it clear that just as the rule of law prevails in other parts of the country, it will equally prevail in the Kashmir valley,” read another tweet. 

Many would wonder from where Jaitley got the stamina. Ailing, feeble but outspoken as always, he ended the Twitter thread with a bang, “Congress Party, as a ‘headless chicken’, is further consolidating its alienation from the people of India. The New India has changed. Only the Congress does not realise this. The Congress leadership is determined to succeed in its race to the bottom.”

As condolences poured in for the 66-year-old politician, his last tweets will be the embodiment of how unstoppably full of life and conviction Jaitley was. — IANS