NEW DELHI:
India's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is unlikely to continue in his current role due to poor health as Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins his second term, according to four sources with knowledge of the matter.
If he hangs his boots, railways minister Piyush Goyal, who served as the interim finance minister when Jaitley was undergoing treatment, may step into his shoes. However, other names are also doing the rounds for this post, said media reports.
The sources said that Jaitley, 66, is unlikely to take up any offer to continue in the top job steering Asia's third-largest economy as his health has deteriorated over the past few months.
Modi's party swept the 2019 general election with a historic mandate of about 300 out of 542 parliamentary seats that were contested, results announced by the Election Commission of India on May 23 showed.
"He is definitely not taking the post of the finance minister simply because he is very unwell," one of the sources, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.
"If at all, he might take up a less stressful role."