Who is P Chidambaram?

New Delhi: P Chidambaram is India's Finance Minister, a veteran Congress politician and a key hand in the Manmohan Singh government.

A Harvard-educated lawyer, the suave Mr Chidambaram commands clout in the Congress - a party he has been with for over three decades - for his financial wisdom and no-nonsense attitude.

Mr Chidambaram has been Finance Minister thrice. Today's Union Budget, coming as the Indian economy strives to regain its growth momentum in a bearish global scenario, will be his eighth and a record in itself.

Mr Chidambaram's last Budget was in 2008-09 and was widely credited with ensuring the re-election of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance or UPA government. Flushed with funds, thanks to near-double-digit economic growth, Mr Chidambaram had increased the government's spending in rural areas, the Congress's traditional votebase.

In his current stint in the Finance Ministry, which came after Pranab Mukherjee's election as President in 2012, Mr Chidambaram is seen as having worked to introduce pro-investor reforms to win back foreign investors, including the controversial Foreign Direct Investment in retail.

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Mr Chidambaram was born on September 16, 1945 in Tamil Nadu, a state he chose for his political debut as well. Having cut his teeth in the Youth Congress and as Congress general secretary from Tamil Nadu, Mr Chidambaram entered the Lok Sabha in 1984. A year later, he joined Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's Cabinet.

In 1996, he briefly parted ways with the Congress, joining mentor GK Moopanar's Tamil Maanila Congress. By 2001, their differences appeared to be irreconcilable, and Mr Chidambaram made a rewarding return to the Congress ranks, as Finance Minister for the first four years of the UPA-1 government.

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A spate of serial bomb blasts in the country culminating in the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008 cost Home Minister Shivraj Patil his job. The Congress entrusted the unenviable post to Mr Chidambaram.

As Home Minister, Mr Chidambaram has been credited with toning up the country's intelligence network. His idea of a centrally-commanded anti-terror hub, the National Counter Terrorism Centre or NCTC, remains one of the government's top priorities, despite the controversies.  

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Mr Chidambaram has had his share of controversies as well. His election to the Lok Sabha from Sivaganga in 2009 is alleged to be fraudulent. The same year, a Sikh journalist threw a shoe at him during a press conference in Delhi to register his protest over the investigations into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

The biggest challenge to Mr Chidambaram's political career, however, was the 2G spectrum scam, in which a petition in the Supreme Court argued that he should be named a co-accused. The Supreme Court gave him a clean chit.

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