He may be now behind bars for the murder of Pawanraje Nimbalkar, but the relationship NCP MP Padamsinh Patil shared with his cousin was once the envy of supporters and rivals in their home district of Osmanabad.

As Patil’s graph rose with that of his relative Sharad Pawar, among those he carried along was Nimbalkar. He was Patil’s aide, manager, as well as right-hand man in the district, all of which helped him rise to the post of chairman of the district cooperative bank, where he wielded enormous financial and political clout.

However, in 2002, over a Rs 30-crore scandal in the bank, the mentor-protege relationship started to come apart. The scam caused a rift between Patil and Nimbalkar that ended up being so deep, allege Nimbalkar’s family members, that it ended in murder. Patil’s supporters, on the other hand, call the entire case a conspiracy hatched to malign him.

For Nimbalkar, who started out as a milk vendor, becoming chairman of the Osmanabad District Central Co-operative Bank (ODCCB) was a big accomplishment, recalls son Omprakashraje. Patil was considered the unofficial patron of the bank.

The scandal that broke out in 2002 was over a Rs 30-crore fixed deposit, made by the Nagpur district cooperative bank, in ODCCB. ODCCB, in turn, allegedly transferred this amount to securities firm Home Trade in exchange for government securities. These securities were never delivered. Home Trade allegedly returned the money to the Nagpur bank, leaving ODCCB with a deficit of Rs 30 crore. But investigators and banking experts who have tracked the scandal suspect the transfers may have happened only on paper as part of a complicated web of financial transactions aimed at inflating accounts.

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