Arun Jaitley did not contest the current Lok Sabha elections presumably because of ill health

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was discharged from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Thursday. He had been admitted in AIIMS for at least one day. Mr Jaitley, 66, has not been attending office for about three weeks now and was admitted to AIIMS for undergoing tests and treatment for an undisclosed illness, sources said.

A lawyer by profession, Mr Jaitley has been the most important leader in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Cabinet, and has often acted as the chief troubleshooter for the government.

He is widely tipped to return as a minister in the second term of the Modi government but his health remains a key concern.

As finance minister, he has steered Parliament through major economic legislations, such as the nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST) -- which had languished for nearly two decades.

One of the most prolific voices in the Modi government and a key strategist, Mr Jaitley did not contest the current Lok Sabha elections presumably because of ill health.

He lost his first parliamentary election from Amritsar in 2014.

Mr Jaitley has been the party's spokesperson for many years. He came to Parliament at the age of 47 when he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat, where Mr Modi was the chief minister.

A minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Mr Jaitley was made finance minister when Mr Modi swept to power in 2014. Mr Jaitley also handled the additional charge of defence and information and broadcasting ministries for a short time.

He had undergone surgery in the US on January 22 reportedly for a soft tissue cancer in his left leg, an illness that restricted him from being able to present the Modi government's sixth budget.

Railway and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal was the stand-in finance minister who presented the interim budget for 2019-20.

Mr Jaitley had returned to India on February 9 after undergoing skin grafting. He is believed to have had undergone some kind of medical procedure again when he last month visited the US to attend the IMF-World Bank Group Spring Meetings event.

Mr Jaitley had undergone a renal transplant on May 14 last year at AIIMS, New Delhi, with Mr Goyal filling in for him at the time too. Mr Jaitley, who had stopped attending office since early April 2018, was back in the finance ministry on August 23, 2018.

Earlier in September 2014, he underwent a bariatric surgery because of a long-standing diabetic condition.