Arun Jaitley, India's former finance minister and a key member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first-term cabinet, has died. He was 66.

A statement by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences announced Jaitley's death on Saturday. He was admitted to a New Delhi hospital two weeks ago after he complained of breathlessness and restlessness.

Jaitley held the finance portfolio in Modi's Hindu nationalist-led government from 2014 through this year but chose not to run for re-election in May's polls because of poor health.

Jaitley was diabetic and had bariatric weight-loss surgery in 2014, received a kidney transplant in 2018 and travelled to the United States last January for unspecified medical care.

He got involved in politics as a student leader in the 1970s.