He was widely seen as a successful Parliamentary Affairs minister due to his good relations with members of political parties across the ideological spectrum.

He attended Yogeshwari Vidyalaya and Mahavidyalaya in Beed district of Maharashtra and studied at the Ranade Institute for Journalism, Pune.

[5] Mahajan was a member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since childhood, but he actively got involved when he worked as a sub-editor of its Marathi Newspaper, Tarun Bharat in 1970 and 1971.

[6] He took part in the agitation against the state of emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and was incarcerated in the Nashik central jail until it was lifted.

He was one of the select batch of RSS workers co-opted into the BJP and was the general secretary of the party's state unit till 1985.

After unsuccessfully contesting the 1984 Lok Sabha elections, he became the president of the All India Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1986, a position he held again between 1990 and 1992.

By virtue of his organizational skills and hard work, he rose to a prominent position, first in the Maharashtra state BJP and then at the national level.

[citation needed] Mahajan's aspirations were always national, but he also did a significant amount of work in building up his party's fortunes in his home state of Maharashtra.

He rose to national prominence when he helped organize BJP President Lal Krishna Advani's Ram Rath Yatra in 1990.

[citation needed] The Lok Sabha elections of 1996 brought the BJP to power and Mahajan was appointed Defence Minister in Vajpayee's 13-day ministry.

He relinquished Water Resources a month later in November and took charge of Information Technology (in addition to Parliamentary Affairs).

However, after winning the contracts the telecom companies found themselves unable to pay the fixed license fees, supposedly because the victors fell victim to the Winner's curse.

Mahajan, who succeeded to the post in August 2001, after a cabinet reshuffle (that also merged the department of Information technology with the Telecommunications portfolio) had the task of implementing this policy.

However, he was also accused of favouring Reliance Infocomm by allowing it to offer full nationwide mobility through WLL without payment of the required license fees.

[citation needed] Mahajan was seen as being close to various lobbyists and corporate houses and there were numerous allegations of financial irregularities during his tenure in the Ministry of Telecom.

A relative of Sudhanshu Mittal, a close associate of Pramod Mahajan and his own son-in-law were found to have been one of the beneficiaries benami shares of Reliance Industries being transferred into shell companies.

[20] The gifting of these shares and allegations of quid pro quo gained prominence in the light of the favouritism shown towards Reliance by Pramod Mahajan when he was the minister for Telecommunications.

Mahajan agreed to take the test but eventually did not as the Delhi Police dismissed Sharma's claim as an emotional outburst as she was unable to provide any concrete evidence in support of her charges.

[citation needed] Assembly elections were held in four Indian states in December 2003 – Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

[27] On the morning of 22 April 2006, Mahajan's estranged younger brother, Pravin shot him with his licensed .32 Browning pistol inside the former's apartment in Mumbai following a dispute.