Recalling his 39-year-old association with the late BJP leader, Munde narrated how a 'non-superstitious' person like Mahajan had turned to religion.
MUMBAI: Did Pramod Mahajan have a premonition of his death? This was the question raised by his brother-in-law and BJP General Secretary Gopinath Munde at a function to mark the BJP leader's first death anniversary here.
"I don't know if he had a premonition but during the 2004 Maharashtra assembly elections, he had told us that these were the last elections he would handle," Munde said on Thursday.
"You will have to manage the next elections, including raising resources," he recalled Mahajan as saying.
Recalling his 39-year-old association with the late BJP leader, Munde narrated how a 'non-superstitious' person like Mahajan had turned to religion.
Two months before he died, Mahajan told me that he wanted to undertake a 'char dham' (four main Hindu religious centres) pilgrimage. He did undertake the pilgrimage and sported 'rudraksh mala' after returing from the religious tour, Munde, who is married to Mahajan's sister, said.
Although both the Mahajan siblings, Rahul and Poonam were present at the function, it was the daughter who shared the stage with BJP stalwart LK Advani. Poonam, who has joined BJP, said Advani was the party's patriarch, while Munde was
patriarch of the Mahajan family.
Poonam, who seems to have inherited her father's oratory skills, said "completing Mahajan's vision for the party and the country will be the true homage to him."
"We in the family did not realise just how great he was. It was only during the 12 days (from April 22 when he was shot and May 3 when he died) that we realised the magnitude of his stature," she said.
Dwelling on Mahajan's love for art, Poonam recalled how in the 1980s her father had missed a day's proceedings of an important party meeting in Rajasthan just to attend a ghazal concert by maestro Ghulam Ali.
"I don t know if it was to Vajpayee or Advani, but Mahajan lied, saying his mother was ill and rushed to Pune to attend the concert," she recalled.
Reciting lines from a poem by noted writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar, Poonam compared Mahajan to the "sun which had gone to the home of darkness while promising us the sunrise".
"He has left us a legacy and we have to fulfil it as a mission," an emotional daughter said, paying rich tributes to her illustrious father.
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