P. Chidambaram

P. Chidambaram Biography

P. Chidambaram is a prominent political figure of present democratic India and he is associated with Indian National Congress. At present he is the Union Minister of Finance in Manmohan Singh’s cabinet. He had a short stint as a Home Affairs Minister, following 2008 Mumbai terror attacks as well. He is widely regarded as a powerful finance minister who helped improving the finances of the government as well.

He was born in Kanadukathan of Sivaganga District, Tamil Nadu in 1945. Chidambaram did his schooling at the Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School and completed graduation in statistics from the Presidency College, Chennai. He also took Bachelor of Law from the Madras Law College and MBA from Harvard Business School, 1968. He was active in politics during his college days and was inclined to the left. In 1969, he started a journal called the Radical Review, aside N. Ram and woman activist Mythili Sivaraman. He enrolled as a lawyer in the Madras High Court and became a senior advocate in 1984.

He actively involved in politics during mid-1980s and stood in general elections from the Sivaganga constituency in 1984. He was elected to Lok Sabha and was re-elected from the same constituency in the general elections of 2004 and 2009. In his political career he has also served as Tamil Nadu Youth Congress president and the general secretary of Congress Committee unit.

He became Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Commerce in 1985 under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Later he became Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions in January 1986. In June 1991, Chidambaram was inducted as a Minister of Statein the Ministry of Commerce, where he served for one year. He was reappointed in the same post for one more year – 1995-96. In 1996, Chidambaram quit the Congress party and joined Tamil Manila Congress. In the coalition government, he was given the portfolio of finance for the first time which proved to be a major breakthrough of his political career. After that he has served as India’s finance minister under Manmohan Singh for two terms.

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Updated: May 06, 2014