MUMBAI: Bhaiyyu Maharaj started off as a model before he turned to spirituality and attracted lakhs of followers, including top politicians, in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Born on April 29, 1968, as Uday Sinh Deshmukh to a family of landlords in Shujalpur in Madhya Pradesh, he modelled for a brand of clothing and took to spiritualism in his early thirties. He began to be known as ‘Rashtra Sant’ after he took 'diksha' from a sadhu at Shirdi Ashram in Nashik. He had a Mercedes and was closely associated with the late Vilasrao Deshmukh and BJP leaders Nitin Gadkari and the late Gopinath Munde. It was Vilasrao who got him to persuade
Anna Hazare to end his fast in 2011.
The guru was known to work for water conservation and children’s education but had shunned the limelight for the past two years, though no one knew he was depressed. “His sudden exit is shocking,” Nitin Gadkari said.
CM Devendra Fadnavis said, “He set up Suryoday Parivar and undertook social welfare schemes in Vidarbha. He had taken up the cause of the downtrodden and economically weaker sections of society. In addition, he was instrumental in organising mass marriages and launched a movement for water conservation, as a result of which huge tracks of land were brought under irrigation.”
State Congress chief Ashok Chavan said, “The NGO set up by Bhaiyyu Maharaj had been working relentlessly for the weaker sections.”
After a spurt in farmer suicides in Vidarbha, particularly in Akola and Yavatmal districts, Bhaiyyu Maharaj had drafted a plan for enhancing the financial status of farmers. Following the gangrape and murder of a minor girl in Kopardi in Ahmadnagar district, parents of girls in the village decided not to send them to school fearing for their safety. The guru urged them not to do so and provided for school buses equipped with CCTVs and security guards for the girls.
Bhaiyyu Maharaj’s first wife Madhavi died in 2015. His daughter from the first wife, Kuhu, is 17. He married Dr Ayushi Sharma in April 2017.
Bhaiyyu Maharaj (file photo)