Bengaluru: Mysore regional commisssioner Rashmi V. Mahesh, is in the news once again. Unlike previous occasions, this time she was literally at the recieving end. Former contract employees of the Administrative Training Institute abused and thrashed her when she went to condole the death of an employee of the ATI.
Ms Mahesh has a history of being honest, brutally frank and taking on the high and mighty. It was she who streamlined the CET counselling process and decentralised the system for those who seek online counselling for seat reservation. She hit the headlines when she was made medical education secretary too. During her term as medical education secretary, she scrapped the PG entrance test for medicine to stop the seat blocking scam. She made Karnataka accept the ranking of the national entrance test to select students. This helped in bringing in a fairly transparent and clean system.
But when she took on religious and linguistic minority institutions, she had to face the brunt. Till then, no one could contain these institutions which violated the the rules and regulations stipulated for minority institutions. She threatened to recommend the cancellation of minority status of almost all institutions. When there was pressure from various quarters, she did not budge. Finally, she was removed from the post and subsequently, she went on three-months leave citing personal reasons.
But those who knew about the developments in the Karnataka government were aware of the fact that she was goaded to go on leave because, the government was upset with her handling of the minority institutions’ issue. When she returned from leave, she was given what the government thought was an insignificant post. But, there too she found a scam involving her predecessor which has led to the latest controversy.
