Mangaluru City Corporation plans to name road after George Fernandes

Mangaluru: The Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) is considering a proposal to name the road leading from circuit house to Bejai church after former defence minister George Fernandes, who died in 2019.

BJP corporator Sudheer Shetty had put forward the proposal to name the road after Fernandes, who was born at Bejai.

The proposal is now pending before the Corporation’s standing committee and once it is ratified, the MCC would invite suggestions and objections from the public, MCC sources said.

Fernandes, born in 1930 to John Joseph Fernandes and Alice Martha Fernandes from Bejai, was elected to the Lok Sabha nine times. A native of Mangaluru, George Fernandes rose to fame as an anti-Emergency crusader and civil rights activist and served as a Union Minister in the Janata Party government headed by Morarji Desai from 1977 to 1980.

Fernandes later joined the Janata Dal. He served as Railways Minister in the V P Singh government from 1989 to 1990 and was instrumental in setting up the Konkan Railway project, connecting Mangaluru with Mumbai.

In 1994, Fernandes formed the Samata Party, which later allied with the BJP. He was appointed convenor of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and served as defence minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government for two terms, between 1998 and 2004.