Age: 63 years (born September 16, 1945).

Belongs to: Kanadukathan in Sivaganga District of Tamil Nadu.

Important posts held: Till November 30, 2008, P Chidambaram held the post of Union Finance Minister. His most talked-about ministerial stint was as Finance Minister in the United Front government when he presented what was hailed as the Dream Budget in 1996. This was in a period when Chidambaram was out of the Congress.

In Congress regimes earlier, he was a junior minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government of 1984 and was Commerce Minister in the PV Narasimha Rao government.

Education: Chidambaram graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Presidency College in Chennai and then studied law at Law College, University of Madras, Chennai. He then obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1968.

Political career: One of the bright young brigade of professionals in politics of the Rajiv Gandhi era, Chidambaram was first elected to parliament as a Congress MP from Sivaganga constituency in Tamil Nadu in 1984, and was re-elected in four consecutive General Elections till 1998. He lost in 1999 but was back again winning in 2004.

He served as minister on several portfolios in the Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao governments, but parted ways with the Congress in 1996 to join the breakaway faction of the Tamil Nadu Congress -- the Tamil Maanila Congress - born out of differences within the party on forming an alliance with J Jayalalitha's AIADMK.

The TMC joined the United Front coalition government after the 1996 general elections and Chidambaram became Union Finance Minister for the first time. The coalition lasted only two years.

Chidambaram left the TMC in 2001 and formed his own party, the Congress Jananayaka Peravai. In 2004 jut before the elections, he led his party back into the Congress. The TMC too had in the meantime, merged back into the Congress in 2002.

In 2004, Chidambaram was back as Finance Minister in the UPA government.

Economics: If Manmohan Singh is the father of Indian economic reforms, Chidambaram is the able successor. He has been extolled by economists and industrialists alike, first for his 1996-97 Dream Budget which envisaged disciplined government spending and large-scale tax reforms to contain India's fiscal deficit.

Chidambaram is an avowed believer in free trade, very popular with industry and can fairly deftly balance political imperatives with good economics.