George Fernandes

George Fernandes (2002)

George Matthew Fernandes ( Kannada ಜಾರ್ಜ್ ಫರ್ನಾಂಡಿಸ್ , born June 3, 1930 in Mangalore , Mysore ( British India ), today: Mangaluru, Karnataka ; † January 29, 2019 in New Delhi ) was an Indian politician of the Janata Party , Samata Party and most recently Janata Dal , who was a member of the Lok Sabha (House of Lords, First Chamber) as well as several times minister at the federal level.

Life

Fernandes came from a Roman Catholic South Indian family. His parents were John Joseph Fernandes and Alice Martha Fernandes (née Pinto). He is said to have received his first name as a tribute to the then British monarch George V (who also had his birthday on June 3rd). During his youth, Fernandes attended a seminary for two and a half years , but dropped out because he was repulsed by the organization of the seminary and the official Roman Catholic Church. Regardless, he still referred to himself as a Christian in later interviews. Fernandes later joined the trade union movement in Bombay and became a leading trade union official and organizer in Bombay in the 1950s. In the 1967 parliamentary election he was elected for the first time as a member of the Lok Sabha as a candidate for the Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP) in the constituency of Bombay South and was initially a member until 1971. During his membership in parliament he was initially a member of the Petitions Committee from 1967 to 1970 and also served as general secretary of the Samyukta Socialist Party between 1969 and 1973. He was then between 1973 and 1977 Chairman of the Socialist Party of India (SPI) and President of the All India Railwaymen's Federation AIRF (All India Railwaymen's Federation) .

In the parliamentary elections from March 16 to 20, 1977 Fernandes was re-elected for the Janata Party (JNP) as a member of the Lok Sabha and belonged to this after his re-election in the parliamentary elections on January 3 and 6, 1980 until the end of the seventh legislative period in December 1984. On March 27, 1977, he was appointed communications minister in the Desai cabinet . As part of a government reshuffle, he then took over the office of Minister of Industry on July 6, 1977, which he held until July 15, 1979.

Fernandes was re-elected as a member of the Lok Sabha in the elections on November 22nd and 26th, 1989 , to which he was a member after his re-election in the 1991 , 1996 , 1998 , 1999 and 2004 elections until the end of the fourteenth legislative period in May 2009. In the cabinet of VP Singh he held the office of Minister of Railways between December 13, 1989 and November 7, 1990, and between March and May 1990 he was Minister for Affairs of Jammu and Kashmir . Subsequently, he was a member of the Railway Committee in the ninth legislative period from 1990 to 1991 and a member of the finance committee of Lok Sabha in the tenth legislative period between 1993 and 1996. In April 1994, he also became president of the Samata Party, which emerged from a break-off from Janata Dal , and was a member of the Lok Sabha Foreign Affairs Committee for the eleventh legislative period from 1996 to 1997.

After the 1998 election, he first became a member of the General Affairs Committee and shortly thereafter, on March 19, 1998, joined the Vajpayee II cabinet as Minister of Defense . From October 13, 1999 until his resignation on March 16, 2001, he also held the office of Minister of Defense in the Vajpayee III cabinet . He then acted in the 13th legislative period between March and October 2001 as chairman of the faction of the Janata Dal (United) (JD (U)) of the Lok Sabha and was at the same time again a member of the committee for general affairs. On October 15, 2001, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee reappointed him as defense minister in his third cabinet, which he was now a member of until the end of Vajpayee's term on May 22, 2004.

After his last re-election as a member of Lok Sabha, he was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the 14th legislative period between May 2004 and August 2007 and was then a member of the Standing Committee on Rural Development from August 5, 2007 to May 2009. Fernandes last sat in the Rajya Sabha for the state of Bihar from August 2009 to July 2010 .

His marriage to Leila Kabir on July 21, 1971 resulted in a son.

Web links

• Fourteenth Lok Sabha: Members Bioprofiles: Fernandes, Shri George. Lok Sabha (English). 
• Fernandes, George (Mathew). In: rulers.org. (English). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Richie Lasrado: A Knight in Shining Armor: A profile of union defense minister George Fernandes. In: Mangalore Today. April 1998, archived from the original on July 6, 2008 ; Retrieved March 9, 2017 (English, reproduced on Daijiworld). 
2. ↑ George Fernandes: Why I am a Christian. In: The Illustrated Weekly of India. December 27, 1970, archived from the original on January 25, 2008 ; Retrieved March 9, 2017 (English, reproduced on Daijiworld). 
3. ↑ Alphabetical List Of Former Members Of Rajya Sabha Since 1952. Parliament of Indian Rajya Sabha, accessed on January 29, 2019 .