India, March 29 -- In April 2018, when the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh offered him a ministerial berth, Bhaiyyu Maharaj turned it down, saying, "A post holds no importance for a saint." Originally from Maharashtra, Bhaiyyu Maharaj was based in Indore. Among his following were chief ministers and bureaucrats, who sought his counsel during political crises. In 2011, PM Modi invited the 'godman' to break his "sadbhavna fast" as chief minister of Gujarat. Those who have visited his ashram in Indore include RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, former president Pratibha Patil, singer Lata Mangeshkar, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis, former Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh, Uddhav Thackeray, chief of the then undivided Shiv Sena, and MNS leader Raj Thackeray. Bhaiyyu Maharaj hit the headlines in 2002, when a number of Nationalist Congress Party MLAs were flown to Indore to prevent them from being poached by a rival party in the state assembly. In 2005, he was accused by a woman who claimed that Bhaiyyu Maharaj was her son's biological father, a charge he denied. Bhaiyyu Maharaj once escaped an alleged attack on his car near Pune in 2016. He died by suicide two years later following threats by a close aide, Palak Pauranik, who claimed she would accuse him of rape if he didn't marry her. Pauranik and two others were sentenced to six years in jail for abetment to suicide and extortion....