Hema Malini Dharmendra Shadi Controversy: Dharmendra married Hema Malini for the second time in 1980 without divorcing his first wife Prakash Kaur. He was accused of religious conversion. Congress had surrounded him fiercely. Read what that whole controversy was about…
While Hema Malini gained recognition as a dream girl on the basis of her brilliant acting and beauty, there were some occasions in her life when she got embroiled in controversies. One such occasion was his marriage. When she married married Dharmendra, this issue never left her. Hema Malini and Dharmendra got married on 2 May 1980. Dharmendra remarried Hema without divorcing his first wife Prakash Kaur, which was illegal under the Hindu Marriage Act. After 24 years of marriage, this issue came to the fore when Dharmendra joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and contested the Lok Sabha elections. Congress had cornered him fiercely regarding his second marriage.
Congress had targeted Dharmendra
In 2004, it came to light that in 1979, both Dharmendra and Hema had converted to Islam and got married, in which there is no restriction on having more than one marriage. It was even claimed that for marriage according to Muslim customs, Dharmendra had changed his name to Dilawar and Hema had changed her name to Ayesha Bi. It was also said that later Dharmendra-Hema got married for the second time as per Iyengar customs. In 2004, when Dharmendra filed his nomination during the Lok Sabha elections, Congress alleged that he had mentioned only the property of his first wife Prakash Kaur and not that of his second wife Hema. Even after 24 years, Hema and Dharmendra’s marriage was under question.
Also read: If not Malini, then what is Hema’s real surname, what is the meaning of her name?
What did Hema Malini say on the controversy?
In Ram Kamal Mukherjee’s book ‘Hema Malini: Beyond the Dream Girl’, Hema Malini had said about Congress’s allegations, “When someone sets out to do something big, some people try to push him back. But I hope he (Dharmendra) will succeed.” When Hema was asked why Dharmendra did not mention her as his second wife in the affidavit? So he said, “This is a personal matter between us. And we will sort it out between ourselves. No one else needs to worry about this.” However, the matter did not end here. Congress accused Hema Malini of giving wrong information about her name and religion and demanded cancellation of her Rajya Sabha nomination.
Hema defended herself on these allegations and said, “There is no truth in these allegations. Apart from this I have nothing to say. This is competition and obviously every party will try to show itself better. I have been campaigning for three years and I do not think that anything has changed even today.”
Dharmendra had told the truth about the news of changing religion!
At the same time, Dharmendra had clarified the news of converting to Islam and changing his name for marriage and said, “These allegations are completely wrong. I am not the kind of person who changes religion for his own benefit.” When Dharmendra was asked about Congress’s allegations, he had said, “If there is any truth in this allegation then let someone prove it with evidence. If it is a lie then let the public decide.” During this time Dharmendra had accused Congress of defaming him. In this general election, Dharmendra contested from Bikaner in Rajasthan and won by 57175 votes.