Nawabganj (Uttar Pradesh), June 19: The suicide note revealed how frustrated the 23-year-old felt because of his father’s indifferent attitude.

“You have not proved yourself to be a good father. You did not take care of us — my brothers, me and sister. When we needed money, you did not oblige. We had to borrow from others. You said I would be your representative, but all you want me to do is attend weddings. I hope after my death you will look after my brothers and sister well,” Shakti Saran wrote to his father Brijbhusan Saran Singh before shooting himself with the politician’s licensed pistol.

That was around 9.30 on the morning of June 17. Nearly 150 km away, in Lucknow, the BJP MP from Balarampur was busy with politics, unaware of the tragedy at home.

He had no inkling of how his eldest son felt about him. Neither did his wife Ketki Devi, who, too, was away in Lucknow. Nor did any of the young man’s siblings — sister Shalini, 20, and brothers Prateek, 15, and Karan, 12.

After the news reached them, the MP and his wife rushed from the state capital to their Nawabganj home in Gonda district. The grief-stricken father broke his silence two days after the tragedy.

“I know I might have hurt my son, but it is not possible for any politician to get his family wherever he is going to give company. What could I have done? I have so many enemies. And there was no trace of the hidden frustration on his face. I was planning to get him married,” the 55-year-old said as he sat surrounded by sombre associates in his outhouse in his village, 34 km from Gonda town.

In normal times, Singh is always surrounded by rifle-toting private security guards. The MP, according to police sources, has over 30 cases against him, including seven murder charges.

Singh also blamed the media. “I was strict with them (the children), made them work hard, but surely it is not possible for a man of the older generation to be friendly with them always. But TV serials are playing havoc by poisoning children’s minds,” he said.

Relatives and villagers said Shakti, who was a management student, was sensitive by nature and resented his father’s “unfeeling” attitude. He was fond of playing football, worked out in the gym and even used to write poetry. Sumant Prasad, one of his friends, said Shakti had high ethical standards. “He would be furious if somebody told lies for nothing.”

Relatives said Shakti used to admire his father earlier for his survival skills in politics but became withdrawn after his grandfather Jagadambika Prasad, the MP’s father, fell ill. The old man was in hospital for 18 days, but the MP visited his father for just half-an-hour.

“I was busy at that time. My son nursed him, sitting continuously at the hospital,” Singh recalled. But his attitude turned his son against him.

Even after that, Shakti tried to come close to his father and helped him during the election campaign. “But after his father’s victory, he again became withdrawn. He used to keep to himself without telling anyone what troubled him. He never had the courage to speak out to his father,” sobbed Ketki Devi, as she struggled to get a hold over herself.

“His (Shakti’s) action is a reflection of protest. When a whole edifice of confidence in his world crumbled, he wanted to correct his father by this extreme step,” said Dr P.K. Jain, a psychoanalyst in Lucknow.

Shakti’s suicide reminds one of Gulzar’s film Hu Tu Tu, where Tabu plays the role of a minister’s daughter who is frustrated by her mother’s indifference and the corruption she was involved in. In protest, she becomes a rebel and blows up her mother in a suicide attack.