Ahead of Maharashtra polls, at a time BJP is making determined efforts to return power in the crucial state, the issue of ‘conspiracy’ behind the murder of BJP’s charismatic leader Pramod Mahajan, two-decades ago by his own brother Pravin Mahajan haunting the party.
As Pramod Mahajan’s daughter and former BJP MP Poonam Mahajan has been raising suspicions over a `greater conspiracy’ and `ulterior motives’ behind her father’s murder, it has been gaining political significance.
In multiple interviews she is saying that she intends writing to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and his Maharashtra counterpart Devendra Fadnavis to initiate an inquiry into the matter. She has been dismissing the popular conception that her father was shot dead due to “rivalry between siblings”, saying that at the time of the incident in 2006, she was not in a position to voice her suspicions.
But, she asserts that she always had doubts regarding the circumstances surrounding her father’s death and now that the BJP is in power at the Centre and Maharashtra, an investigation can be launched to “uncover the truth”, she claims.
Though she is not directly pointing her suspicious finger against anyone, her tone of concern reveals that some `top BJP’ leader was behind this incident, who may be unable to digest the growing influence of her father with the party top leadership. In 2022, Poonam suggested a “mastermind” behind her father’s murder, suggesting that the case was more than a family dispute or rivalry between siblings and needed further investigation.
Moreover, Poonam raising her voice ahead of polls makes BJP leadership defensive as this has been projecting a ‘victim card’ before the electorate towards their efforts of sidelining her in a systematic way.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, the two-time North Central Mumbai Lok Sabha MP was replaced with noted lawyer Ujjwal Nikam who lost.BJP leaders, including Fadnavis, defended the decision to bench Poonam saying that she may be assigned a larger role in state politics indicating she will be fielded in the assembly polls. However, the former MP was not fielded in the upcoming Maharashtra elections too.
Pramod Mahajan was shot dead by brother Pravin on April 22, 2006, at his Worli residence in Mumbai. As per reports, after shooting his brother Pravin walked calmly into a police station nearby, handed over his gun, and said, “I am Pravin…I killed Pramod”. While serving a life sentence, Pravin was admitted to a hospital after a suspected brain haemorrhage. He died in March 2010.
During the court hearings of the murder case, Pravin showed little remorse and also claimed that Pramod raised him ‘like a pet dog’. He said his friends taunted him saying that his famous brother had done little to help him. Poonam, who also appeared before the trial court as a witness, had pointed at Pravin saying that he killed her father and left her orphaned.
