Sylvester Fernandez. (Photo, as it appears on sylvesterforcongress.com)

Washington - Republican state party leader Sylvester Fernandez has been nominated to run against leading Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) in the U.S. elections this November, from the 6th Congressional District in New Jersey.

Pallone, who has represented New Jersey for the past eight terms, is best known as a ‘friend of India’ and has been awarded the ‘The Padma Bhushan,’ one of India’s highest civilian honors. Pallone is also the founder member of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian India Caucus and Indian Americans.

According to emalayalee.com Web site, Monmouth County Republican chairman Bill Dowd officially conferred the unanimous nomination to Fernandez to represent the Republican party in the November election. At the nominating Convention of the Middlesex County Republican Organization on April 3, Fernandez had received the unopposed nomination to represent the county in the 6th Congressional District, and he has no opposition in the primary to be held in June.

The 6th Congressional District comprises 10 municipalities in Middlesex County and 20 municipalities from the Monmouth County along with the municipality of Plainfield from Union County and parts of Franklin municipality from the Somerset County. The district has one of the largest South Asian populations in the country.

After receiving the official nomination, Fernandez said: “I guess, people think it is a foregone conclusion that the outcome of this race is already decided before November 2004. I know I am an underdog and heavily outweighed by an overwhelmingly registered Democratic district. The odds against me are huge. Does that mean David cannot challenge Goliath?”

Fernandez was born in Quilon, Kerala. He was educated in Mumbai through to his graduate degree in mathematics and economics from Bombay University in 1970. He went to work in Muscat for two years and thereafter in Saudi Arabia for nine years. He came to the U.S. in 1984 to pursue his masters degree in operations management at the New School University, New York City, Milan Graduate Division, from where he graduated in 1987.

He has worked with Pan American Airways, AT&T, Bell Labs and Lucent Technologies. Fernandez was appointed as a commissioner of the Prosperity New Jersey Commission for five years by then Governor Christine Todd Whitman.

He was the president of the Republican Club in Metuchen in 1998, and ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for the 18th Legislative District of New Jersey in 2001.