Ahead of crucial Maharashtra elections, late Pramod Mahajan makes waves

Nearly two decades after he was shot dead by his own brother Pravin Mahajan, BJP’s charismatic and media-friendly leader late Pramod Mahajan is back in the news.

In multiple interviews she has given ahead of the crucial Maharashtra Assembly elections, Pramod Mahajan's daughter and former BJP MP Poonam Mahajan has been raising suspicions over a “conspiracy” and “ulterior motives” behind his murder. Poonam says she also intends writing to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and his Maharashtra counterpart Devendra Fadnavis to initiate an inquiry into the matter.

Dismissing the idea of “rivalry between siblings” as the reason, Poonam says at the time of the incident in 2006, she was not in a position to voice her suspicions. But 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.

Strategist who made BJP tech-savvy

Known for his organisational acumen, Pramod Mahajan was a strategist who made the BJP compatible with the digital age in the times when the concept was still in its nascent stage.

He 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,” according to those familiar with the case.

Conspiracy angle not raised first time

This is not the first time Poonam has hinted at a “conspiracy”. Some observers also point at “power struggle” in the party at the time of his death amid an aging top brass. 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.

In one of her recent interviews, she was quoted as saying “that the bullet was not merely out of one man’s anger or jealousy. My father paid for that bullet; he also paid for the gun".

“I have always said there was a bigger conspiracy behind it. There was no quarrel between the brothers—when one gives and the other takes, there is no quarrel... but there was a larger conspiracy behind it.

"Was it just for some money? Or was there someone who had planned that by using money as a guise, they could suppress the truth? There was a huge conspiracy behind it”, she said

Why bring it up now

Apart from the fact that these interviews coincided with Pramod Mahajan's birth anniversary on October 30, observers also sense some political reasons.

In the last Lok Sabha elections, the two-time North Central Mumbai Lok Sabha MP was replaced with noted lawyer Ujjwal Nikam who lost.

As a senior public prosecutor, Nikam appeared for the government in several high-profile cases, including the 26/11 Mumbai attack case, the 1993 Bombay bombings and the murder case of Poonam’s father Pramod Mahajan.

BJP leaders, including Fadnavis, defended the decision to bench Poonam saying that she may be assigned a larger role in state politics. “In many states, MPs are contesting MLA elections and MLAs are contesting the MP elections. So it was decided that we should send some MPs to the state because elections are to be held in the state soon. And due to this, this decision has been taken here, no one's ticket has been cancelled,” he was quoted as saying. However, the former MP was not fielded in the upcoming Maharashtra elections too.

The elections to the 288-member Maharashtra Legislative Assembly is witnessing a fierce contest between two coalitions — the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) comprising of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT), Sharad Pawar’s NCP and Congress, and the Mahayuti Alliance which includes BJP, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and NCP (Ajit Pawar).