George Fernandes: The firebrand leader who had packed Coca Cola off from India

New Delhi, Jan 29: Former defence minister George Fernandes, who had been ailing for some time, passed away on Tuesday, January 29, at the age of 88.

A firebrand leader who had protested against the Indira Gandhi government during Emergency - Fernandes served as the minister in the government of Atal Behari Vajpayee between 1998-2001 and 2001-04.

However, the one of the leader's bigger identity was his fight against Coca Cola in the pre-liberalised India and emerging victorious in the fight against the multi-national corporation.

In September 1977, Fernandes, 47 then, said that he had no second thought on the question of allowing Coca Cola to continue its operations in India.

"Our policy toward multinationals is uniform. They must abide by the law of the land if they want to be in business here," the New York Times had quoted him in a report that started with the lines: "Coca‐Cola appears to have lost its battle for survival in India".

It was the Janata government, the first non-Congress regime, which was in power at the Centre then.

"Last month he announced in Parliament that the Coca‐Cola Company had been asked to transfer 60 percent of the shares of its Indian company and the formula for its concentrate to Indian shareholders or cease operations in India. Coca‐Cola said that it was agreeable to transferring a majority of the shares but not the formula, which it contended was a trade secret," the NYT report added.