P. Chidambaram

Some Lesser Known Facts About P. Chidambaram

• P. Chidambaram is an Indian politician popularly known for being India’s Finance Minister from 2004-2014. He is one of the senior Spokespersons of the Indian National Congress (INC).

• His mother, Lakshmi Achi, was the daughter of Sir Annamalai Chettiar, who was the founder of the Annamalai University and the United India Insurance Company.

• During his college days, he was influenced by the Left’s ideology. In 1969, he joined N. Ram (Editor of The Hindu) and women’s activist Mythili Sivaraman and started a political journal- “The Radical View”.

  

• Chidambaram is also a Supreme Court lawyer.

  

• P. Chidambaram had a love marriage. Their families were against the marriage so he eloped with his wife and got married on 11 December 1968. They had invited their parents but they did not attend. After a gap of nine months, their families finally accepted them.

  

• The Budget that he presented in 1997 as the Finance Minister is still considered the dream budget for the Indian Economy.

  

• Her mother, Lakshmi Achi, attended the Budget session of 1997. She said that in those days, you could sit in the parliament and listen to the budget. Chidambaram spoke for one and a half hours. She stated that she was proud that her son had presented a balanced budget.

  

• According to his mother, he has a very strong memory. He absorbs everything that he reads and is a very fast reader; by the time someone finishes reading 1 page, he would’ve already completed 10.

• On 25 November 2005, Chidambaram merged his party, Congress Jananayaka Peravai, with the Indian National Congress after being made the Finance Minister.

  

• In 2004, he was inducted into the Manmohan Singh Government as the Finance Minister.

  

• In November 2008, he was appointed as the Home Minister after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks following the resignation of Shivraj Patil as Home Minister.

  

• In 2012, he was appointed as the Finance Minister again when Pranab Mukherjee (the then Finance Minister of India) became the President of India.

  

• On 5 July 2016, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha.

  

• On 4 December 2019, he walked out of jail after almost three months, with the Supreme Court granting him bail in the INX Media money laundering case. He spent 105 days in prison, mostly in Delhi’s Tihar Jail.