This Article is From Nov 07, 2014

Who Is Jayant Sinha?

Who Is Jayant Sinha?

Jayant Sinha, BJP MP and son of former finance minister Yashwant Sinha

New Delhi: If Jayant Sinha, son of former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, gets appointed as a junior minister for finance on Sunday, it would be one of the very rare instances of father and son getting charge of the same portfolio.

Yashwant Sinha had been the finance minister of the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He had served the department from 1998 to 2002.

The appointment comes ahead of the budget session and its increased workload. Arun Jaitley, who holds the finance portfolio, has recently recovered from a long illness.

Jayant, 51, and a first-time Member of Parliament, had come back after an over 20-year stay in the US, to eventually take charge of the family's pocketborough, Hazaribagh. He won this year's Lok Sabha election with a huge margin of over 1.5 lakh votes over his closest rival, Congress' Saurabh Narayan Singh.

An alumnus of IIT and Harvard Business School, he had entered politics quitting a flourishing career as a venture capitalist, investment fund manager and management consultant.

Currently, he is a member of two important parliamentary committees - the Public Accounts Committee and the Standing Committee on Finance. He also accompanied Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent trip to the US, working behind the scenes for the PM's meetings with investors and the captains of the US industry.

Jayant is married to Puneeta and the couple has two sons. In his account on the microblogging site Twitter, he describes himself as "passionate about India, technology, cricket and tennis".

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