'Delighted to be Back Home': Union Minister Arun Jaitley Returns After Treatment in US

New Delhi: Ailing BJP leader and Union minister Arun Jaitley announced his return home from the United States on Saturday via Twitter.

"Delighted to be back home," read a one-line message by Jaitley.

In the middle of January, Arun Jaitley, who was Finance Minister then, unexpectedly left for the US for a medical check up relating to his kidney ailment.

In a reshuffle of portfolios, Jaitley, who was to present his sixth and the BJP-led NDA government's last budget on February 1, was named a minister without portfolio "during the period of his indisposition or till such time he is able to resume his work".

Piyush Goyal was named the Finance Minister in his absence. Goyal went on to present the interim budget.

Jaitley, however, has been making political interventions through blogs, via video conferencing and tweets.

In an interview to PTI in New York after the Budget presentation, Jaitley said he was on recovery course and return to India in time to reply to the Budget debate in Parliament will depend on when his doctors allow him to leave.

"It depends on my treatment here, which is all over. I am on the recovery course. It's when my doctors allow me to go back. As of present, as I understand, Piyush Goyal will be replying (to the Budget debate in Parliament)," he said.

The Budget session of Parliament ends on February 13, and debate on the Interim Budget has been taken up in the Lok Sabha.