Former union minister Sarojini Mahishi passed away at her residence at Ghaziabad in New Delhi on Sunday. She was 87. Her last rites will be performed in Delhi on Tuesday.
Sarojini was a four-time MP from Dharwad North constituency. She had mastery over Kannada, Sanskrit, English, Marathi and Hindi. She was born in Dharwad on March 3, 1927 and was second among the eight children of Bindurao Mahishi and Kamalabai. Sarojini studied in Dharwad, Sangli and Mumbai and earned post-graduate degree in Sanskrit with distinction. She also did her LLB.
She was working with the State Social Welfare Board when Sindhur Siddappa, a Congress leader, invited her to join politics and offered her a ticket to contest the parliamentary election in 1962.
She won four times in 1962, 1967, 1971 and 1977. Sarojini was a trusted lieutenant of then prime minister Indira Gandhi. Sarojini was also union minister of state for civil aviation.
The Ramakrishna Hegde government appointed her in 1983 to head the committee which recommended job quota for Kannadigas in public sector undertakings, private firms and multinational companies.