George Fernandes

George Fernandes
George Fernandes in 2002
22nd Minister of Defence
In office 21 October 2001 – 22 May 2004
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Preceded by	Jaswant Singh
Succeeded by	Pranab Mukherjee
In office 19 March 1998 – 16 March 2001
Prime Minister	Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Preceded by	Mulayam Singh Yadav
Succeeded by	Jaswant Singh
Minister of Railways
In office 2 December 1989 – 10 November 1990
Prime Minister	V. P. Singh
Preceded by	Madhav Rao Scindia
Succeeded by	Janeshwar Mishra
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha for Bihar
In office 4 August 2009 – 7 July 2010
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
In office 2004–2009
Preceded by	Jai Narain Prasad Nishad
Succeeded by	Jai Narain Prasad Nishad
In office 1989–1996
Preceded by	Laliteshwar Prasad Shahi
Succeeded by	Jai Narain Prasad Nishad
In office 1977–1984
Preceded by	Nawal Kishore Sinha
Succeeded by	Laliteshwar Prasad Shahi
Constituency	Muzaffarpur, Bihar
In office 1996–2004
Preceded by	Vijay Kumar Yadav
Succeeded by	Nitish Kumar
Constituency	Nalanda, Bihar
In office 1967–1971
Preceded by	Sadashiv Kanoji Patil
Succeeded by	Kailas Narain Narula Shivnarain
Constituency	Mumbai South, Maharashtra
Personal details
Born	George Mathew Fernandes (1930-06-03)3 June 1930 Mangalore, Madras Presidency, British India (present-day Mangaluru, Karnataka, India)
Died	29 January 2019(2019-01-29) (aged 88) New Delhi, India
Political party	Samata Party[1][2]
Other political affiliations	Samyukta Socialist Party Janata Party Janata Dal Janata Dal (United) National Democratic Alliance
Spouse	Leila Kabir
Children	1 son
Residence(s)	Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Awards	Padma Vibhushan (2020) (posthumously)
Signature
Source: [1]

George Mathew Fernandes^[3] (3 June 1930 – 29 January 2019) was an Indian trade unionist, statesman,^[4] and journalist,^[5] who served as the 22nd Defence Minister of India from 1998 until 2004. A veteran socialist, he was a member of the Lok Sabha for over 30 years, starting from Bombay (present-day Mumbai) in 1967 till 2009 mostly representing constituencies from Bihar.^[6] He was a key member of the Janata Dal and the founder of the Samata Party.^[7] Holding several prominent ministerial portfolios during his career, including communication, industry, railways, and defence,^[8] he was posthumously awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, in 2020.^{[9][10][11][12]}

A native of Mangalore, Fernandes was sent to Bangalore in 1946 to be trained as a priest. In 1949, he moved to Bombay, where he joined the socialist trade union movement. Becoming a trade union leader, Fernandes organised many strikes and bandhs in Bombay in the 1950s and 1960s while working with the Indian Railways. He defeated S K Patil of the Indian National Congress in the 1967 parliamentary elections from the Bombay South constituency. As president of the All India Railwaymen's Federation, he led the 1974 railways strike. Fernandes went underground during the Emergency era of 1975, while challenging Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for imposing a state of emergency,^[13] but in 1976 he was arrested and tried in the infamous Baroda dynamite case.

In 1977, after the Emergency had been lifted, Fernandes won the Muzaffarpur seat in Bihar in absentia. As industries minister, he revoked the licences for multinationals IBM and Coca-Cola to operate in India, due to investment violations. As railways minister from 1989 to 1990 he was the driving force behind the Konkan Railway project. As defence minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led second and third Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministries (1998–2004), he oversaw the outbreak of the Kargil War and the implementation of nuclear tests at Pokhran. Fernandes has been dogged by various controversies, including the Barak Missile scandal and the Tehelka affair. George Fernandes won nine Lok Sabha elections from 1967 to 2004.^[14] He died on 29 January 2019 at the age of 88.^[15]