P. Chidambaram

Classification	Finance Minister of India, Indian politician
Date of Birth	September 16, 1945
Place of Birth	Kaanaadukaathaan, Sivagangaa District, Tamil Nadu
Education	B.Sc., B.L. (Presidency College, Chennai), M.B.A. (Harvard University, Boston)
Profession	Lawyer
Importance	Known to be an honest politician, and one of the richest politicians (based on declared assets) from Tamil Nadu

P. Chidambaram is the finance minister of India in the Congress-led UPA government (2004-2009). He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004 from Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu, the constituency from which he was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1984. He was minister of state for commerce and also for personnel from 1985 to 89 in Rajiv Gandhi's ministry and was minister of state for commerce with independent charge from 1991 to 1996 in the Narasimha Rao government. He was Finance Minister from 1996 to 1998 in the United Front government.

An MBA graduate from Harvard, he started as a leftist, went on to be an architect of the Congress government's economic reform strategies as Rajiv Gandhi's right hand man, and has today ascended to the post of India's Finance Minister with the new United Front Government, after yet another affiliation shift.

In 1996, Chidambaram quit the Congress over its decision to ally with AIADMK and joined the Tamil Maanila Congress. In 2001 he broke away from TMC and formed his own party, Congress Jananayaka Peravai. CJP is now closely allied with Congress, and in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections Chidambaram was elected on a Congress symbol.

The letter P. in his name stands for initial, as his father's name is Palaniyappan. See Indian family name for a further reading.

External links

• Profile at Lok Sabha page (http://164.100.24.208/ls/lsmember/homepage.asp?mpsno=3000)
• Budget 2004-2005 (http://indiabudget.nic.in/budgetspeech-ondemand.htm) - Video clipping of Chidambaram's Budget speech
• Profile on ieo.org (http://www.ieo.org/chidmbrm.html)
• Profile (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3741169.stm) by BBC