Last rites of Udaipur’s Mahendra Singh Mewar held

Jaipur : Former royal family member of Udaipur and former MP Mahendra Singh Mewar (83) was cremated on Monday at around 4 pm. His son and BJP MLA from Nathdwara Vishwaraj Singh Mewar lit the funeral pyre.

Grandson Devjaditya Singh was also present on the occasion.

Mahendra Singh Mewar passed away on Sunday.

Mahendra Singh Mewar’s last journey started from his residence Samor Bagh Palace in Udaipur at 11 am on Monday and reached the cremation site in Aiyad at 3 pm while passing through Jagdish Chowk, Ghantaghar, Bada Bazaar, Bhadbhuja Valley, Delhi Gate.

A large number of people gathered to catch his glimpse. Even in many markets of Udaipur city including Bada Bazar, traders kept markets closed paying due respect to the deceased.

Earlier, lakhs of people paid homage to Mahendra Singh Mewar as his body was taken in a procession on the way to the royal cremation ground.

After his demise, Mahendra Singh Mewar’s body was kept for the last public darshan at his residence in Samor Bagh Palace.

Mahasatiya is the cremation ground of the members of the former royal family of Mewar. Maharana Amar Singh-I was first cremated here in 1615. Since then it became the cremation ground of the royal family.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed his condolences on the demise of Mahendra Singh Mewar.

Many politicians and bureaucrats, including Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma, BJP state president Madan Rathore and former BJP state president Satish Poonia paid floral tribute to Mahendra Singh Mewar. Former CM Vasundhara Raje, Deputy CM Diya Kumari and other leaders condoled his death.

Ajatashatru Singh Shivrati, connected with the former royal family, said Mahendra Singh Mewar suffered a brain stroke on October 28. Since then he was admitted to the ICU of Ananta Hospital.

Mewar's son Vishvraj Singh is BJP MLA from Nathdwara and daughter-in-law Mahima Kumari is MP from Rajsamand.

Mahendra Singh Mewar contested the Lok Sabha elections from Chittorgarh on a BJP ticket in 1989. He got 3,97,056 votes against Nirmala Kumari from Congress, who got 2,05,318 votes.

In the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, Mahendra Singh left the BJP and joined the Congress.

The Congress party fielded him from Chittorgarh. His opponent was Jaswant Singh Jasol from the BJP. Jasol won the election.

In the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress fielded Mahendra Singh Mewar from Bhilwara. In this election, he was defeated by BJP's Subhash Chand Bahediya. He got 1,95,522 votes and Bahediya got 2,12,731 votes.

In January 2018, Mahendra Singh Mewar questioned the storyline of the movie Padmavat and openly opposed the film. He claimed that what was shown in the film was neither recorded in history nor in Jayasi's Padmavat.