Who Was Bhaiyyu Maharaj: 10 Facts About Spiritual Guru Who Committed Suicide

Bhaiyyu Maharaj, a Madhya Pradesh-based high-profile spiritual guru, committed suicide on Tuesday by shooting himself at his residence in Indore. Bhaiyyuji had prominent followers from different political parties.

File photo of self-styled spiritual leader Bhaiyyu Maharaj who allegedly committed suicide on Tuesday, June 12, 2018, in Indore by shooting himself. (PTI Photo)

INDORE: Bhaiyyu Maharaj, a Madhya Pradesh-based high-profile spiritual guru, committed suicide on Tuesday by shooting himself at his residence in Indore. Bhaiyyuji had prominent followers from different political parties.

• Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari expressed grief over the death and offered their condolences. Chouhan said in a message that the country has lost a personality that is a confluence of culture, knowledge and service. "Your thoughts will motivate the society to walk on the path of serving humanity till eternity," he said in a tweet.
• Bhayyu Maharaj was one of the five 'saints' to whom the Shivraj Singh government of Madhya Pradesh had granted Minister of State (MoS) rank in April. However, he had refused to accept it, saying "a post holds no importance for a saint".
• When Bhaiyyu Maharaj, whose real name was Udaysinh Deshmukh, was injured in a road accident in 2016, among those who came to meet him were RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and then Gujarat CM Anandiben Patel.
• This was an indication of the tremendous clout and fan following the 50-year-old model-turned-spiritual guru had among politicians, many of them from Maharashtra.
• Past visitors to Bhaiyyu Maharaj's 'ashram' at Indore, where he was based, included well-known personalties like Narendra Modi, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Pratibha Patil, Uddhav and Raj Thackeray, Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle.
• Bhaiyyu Maharaj had even done modelling for a well-known brand of clothes before turning spiritual. He was seen as a glamorous personality in the spiritual field.
• Born in 1968 in a family of agriculturists at Shujalpur in Madhya Pradesh, Bhaiyyu Maharaj was invited by Modi when he undertook 'sadbhavna fast' as Chief Minister of Gujarat.
• In 2011, the then UPA government had deputed him as a mediator to persuade social activist Anna Hazare to call off his fast at the Ramlila ground in Delhi over the Lokpal issue.
• Last year, the self-proclaimed spiritual guru courted controversy on his wedding day after a woman, who claimed to be an actress, accused him of "cheating" on her and termed him a "trickster".
• Bhaiyyu Maharaj married Dr Ayushi Sharma, a native of Shivpuri, in Indore last year, a year after announcing his intention to take 'sanyas' from public life. His first wife Madhavi died in 2015.