The empire set up by the late Vithalrao Vikhe-Patil, who pioneered sugar cooperatives, is illustrative: the first cooperative sugar mill in the country was established by Vikhe-Patil in Ahmednagar district in 1950. Subsequently, he set up allied industries like pulp and paper mills, biogas plant, chemical plant and a distillery. In 1964 the Pravara Education Society was established to run schools and colleges. The institution runs colleges in almost all faculties — from arts, science and commerce, to medical, engineering, home science and biotechnology. Vikhe-Patil was succeeded by his son Balasaheb Vikhe-Patil who took forward his father’s work by adding institutions and diversifying into more areas. The Pravara group established a medical trust in 1972 (which now runs an 800 bed hospital); and a cooperative bank in 1975.

The son, Balasaheb, and grandson, Radhakrishna, look after the empire and are considered invincible in Ahmednagar district. Their electoral clout has made the family much sought after by various parties. Balasaheb defected from the Congress to the Shiv Sena and became the Union minister of state for finance in the NDA government in 1999 and minister for heavy industries in 2002. By 2004 he was back in the Congress. Balasaheb is serving his eighth term in the Lok Sabha. His son Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil is serving his third term as MLA from Shirdi (Ahmednagar) and was the agriculture minister in the state in 1998.

• Are there estimates of the worth of such empires?

Each of these empires runs into thousands of crores. Interestingly, since most of the powerful politicians are in the business of cooperatives, they ensure that the state government bails out a particular sector in the time of crisis, through subsidies or soft loans — as in the case of the sugar industry.

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