Chidambaram Greeted By Son, Jail Officials And Inmates On His Birthday

Lodged in Tihar jail since Sept. 5, former Union minister P Chidambaram was visited by his son on his birthday and greeted by prison officials and some inmates, sources said.

Jail officials said he had not made any special demands for the day.

Chidambaram was sent to judicial custody on Sept. 5 by a Delhi court in connection with the INX Media corruption case.

Greetings from well-wishers make him feel "74 years young", the Congress leader said on Monday in tweets made through his family on his birthday and added that his thoughts on the day are on the economy.

At the Tihar jail, he received wishes from the staff of jail number seven, and some inmates also greeted him when he stepped out of his cell, the sources said.

The veteran Congress leader's son Karti also met him, the sources added.

Karti, who visits Chidambaram often in jail, posted online an emotional letter to his father and took swipes at the Bharatiya Janata Party government.

"You are 74 years old and no 56!!! can stop you," Karti wrote to his father as he wished him on his birthday.

"Your birthday is not the same without you with us. We miss you, and your absence tugs at our hearts, and we wish you were back home to cut the cake with us. But of course, in today's day and age, turning 74 is nothing compared to turning 100 days old," Karti said in the letter.

The BJP government, he said, celebrates its "unpropitious second innings" and couldn't have possibly found a better time to silence his father.