Pramod Mahajan

Pramod Mahajan Biography

Pramod Mahajan was one of the popular leaders of Bharatiya Janatha party from Andhra Pradesh. He has served as General Secretary of the party and regarded as one of its influential leaders belonging to the second generation. He has contested for the Lok Sabha elections thrice and has won it once. His proximity to industrialists have brought him open criticisms that he revolutionized BJP and RSS to a ‘Five Star’ culture and those blames were put on him by the first generation of leaders. In 2006, he was shot by his brother Pravin Mahajan at his residence over a quarrel of family dispute and Pramod succumbed to his wounds 13 days later. His brother was given lifetime imprisonment in 2007. His children - Rahul Mahajan is a noted television personality and his daughter, Poonam Mahajan Rao is an active politician.

He was born on 30 October 1949 in Mahabubnagar, Andhra Pradesh. He became a member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh during his school days and was actively associated with politics during his college days. Noted politician Gopinath Munde was his college mate and he later married Pramod’s sister. Gopinath Munde was introduced to politics and RSS by Mahajan. Mahajan has also worked as a sub-editor of its Marathi Newspaper, Tarun Bharat for a brief period in the early 1970’s. He actively participated in agitations during Emergency period 1975 and has served jail life too. He has been actively associated with RSS and BJP since then.

He contested for the Lok Sabha election for the first time in 1984, but lost it. Two years later he was elected as the president of the All India Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1986 and with the late 1980’s he rose to prominence and became one of the emerging leaders of the party. However with his death in 2006, a shining political career came to an end. As a minister in charge of telecommunication, he played a major role in India's cellular revolution in 2001-2003, though he was blamed of favouring Reliance Infocomm. 

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Updated: April 23, 2014