By IANS,
Mumbai : Another brother of late Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Pramod Mahajan has called his younger brother Pravin’s tell-all book a “figment of his imagination” and a “political conspiracy”.
At a hurriedly convened media gathering this afternoon, Prakash Mahajan, brother of Pramod and Pravin, said that all the allegations made in the book on Mahajan family and Pramod’s character are “blatantly false”.
Prakash is the general secretary of Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
“Pravin was always unemployed, his wife Sarangi loved to enjoy life without doing anything and he (Pravin) ran his household by blackmailing Pramod.”
“Let Sarangi answer how she runs her house expenses now,” Prakash said, pointing that Pravin did not even attend the wedding of Poonam (Pramod’s daughter) but sent his wife and children instead.
The book entitled “My Album” — around 175 pages — will be published in Marathi and English soon. A brief 15-page extract of the book is available with IANS.
In the book, which Pravin said was inspired within the confines of the prison walls where he is currently lodged, he has dwelt upon several aspects of his elder brother’s personal, professional and political life, his principles, his political associates, etc, many of them not exactly laudatory.
Calling Pramod as a “diamond”, Prakash said that his character was “spotless”, contrary to the Pravin’s wild allegations.
“If that was so, why was the whole family not aware of it and why Pravin never raised the issue of Pramod’s so-called ‘bad character’ before his death,” Prakash said.
Referring to the purported incident of Pramod raising his hand to beat their mother, Prakash said it was false.
“If it was indeed so, why we were not informed about it? Why did he remember it now, three years after Pramod’s death? This is nothing but an attempt by Pravin to absolve himself of the crime of killing his older brother who brought him up like a father.”
Dismissing another incident in the book’s extract that said Pramod was responsible for their father’s death, Prakash said that Pravin was barely nine years old at that time.
He said it was wrong that their father suffered a heart attack after a quarrel with their mother.
“Our father died due to a hypertension stroke when Pramod was a student of journalism in Pune. He even took part in our father’s funeral, walking barefoot in the scorching April sun. Later, he raised us all like a father figure. Pravin is talking nonsense,” he said.
When questioned about other issues in Pravin’s forthcoming book, Prakash became exasperated: “You believe Pravin, a killer convicted by the court, just because he’s a brother. But you don’t believe what I am saying although I am also his brother.”
He said that the book is nothing but an attempt by a section of the media to “make a hero of Pravin, who is a convicted killer”.
In a statement to IANS Sunday morning, Pravin’s wife Sarangi said: “This book should be treated as an ordinary book. It doesn’t include any of the court statements which were in camera.”
She had also made it clear that the book is not an autobiography of her husband, merely an authentic account of certain incidents in his life which he experienced.
“It is not directed against any individual, party or group and should not be construed as such,” she said.
On April 22, 2006, Pravin had gone to Pramod’s house in Worli and pumped several bullets into his abdomen. After battling for survival, Pramod died on May 3.
After a trial, Pravin was sentenced to life imprisonment and is currently in jail. He has said in the introduction to the book that he could picture his entire life like a “documentary film” compelling him to put it down on paper.