Team Thackeray tussle puts focus on 2006 murder case with a Sunetra Pawar link

A former MLA, Rajenimbalkar was at the Mumbai City Civil and Sessions Court Tuesday, awaiting the verdict on the murder of his father, Congress leader Pawan Rajenimbalkar, in 2006. The matter was adjourned to June 20 (Saturday) because the special CBI court judge is yet to finish writing the judgment.

Om Prakash Rajenimbalkar is one of the six MPs on the list of Sena (UBT) rebels and skipped the key meeting in Delhi Thursday. Asked if he had been offered money to switch to the Shinde camp, he replied in the negative and said people should not believe such rumours.

Rajenimbalkar is reportedly yet to sign a letter addressed to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, announcing that the rebel MPs want to merge with the Shinde Sena. He has told reporters that he will clarify his stand only after the verdict in his father’s murder case is out on June 20. He has said the judgment is significant for him and his family.

Omprakash Rajenimbalkar’s father Pavan and his driver Samad Kazi were shot dead in June 2006

A 2006 Murder

On June 3, 2006, Pawan Rajenimbalkar and his driver Samad Kazi were shot dead in a car on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Nine accused, including former NCP minister and Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar’s brother Padamsingh Patil, are on trial before the special CBI court on multiple charges, including murder and criminal conspiracy.

Now in his 80s, Patil was in court on Tuesday. He came to the premises in an ambulance and was seated in a wheelchair. Patil and Pawan Rajenimbalkar were cousins and the former is alleged to have plotted the murder out of political rivalry.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls two years before the killing, Patil defeated Pawan Rajenimbalkar by a narrow margin of 484 votes to win the Osmanabad parliamentary seat, now renamed to Dharashiv.

The CBI has alleged that despite the win, Patil continued to see his cousin Pawan as a threat to his political career and hired a contract killer to eliminate him. The CBI has also alleged that Pawan’s allegations of corruption against Patil, including in the management of the Terna Sugar Cooperative of which he was a chairman, had angered him.

A 20-year wait

On Tuesday, Omprakash Rajenimbalkar and his family members were present in court. “We as a family have waited for the verdict for 20 years and 13 days. My father fought as an Independent candidate in 2004 and lost by just 484 votes, that too after false information was spread that he had extended support to Padamsinh Patil. We expect that justice will be done. My entry into politics was shaped by this incident. My political birth was to prove that killing a political rival does not end the rivalry, a new successor is born,” Rajenimbalkar told reporters after the verdict date was pushed to Saturday.

A long-term Uddhav loyalist

Now 42, Omprakash Rajenimbalkar entered politics in 2009 – three years after his father’s murder – and was elected MLA on a Shiv Sena ticket. He was elected to Lok Sabha in the 2019 and 2024 polls, and stayed with Uddhav Thackeray when Eknath Shinde’s mutiny split the Sena in 2022.

The Supreme Court directed a time-bound trial in the Pawan Rajenimbalkar murder case. A total of 128 witnesses were heard, 29 of whom turned hostile. Among the witnesses were Rajenimbalkar and his mother, Anandibai, who spoke in court about the threats Pawan Rajenimbalkar received and how police denied him protection.

One of the accused, Parasmal Jain, turned approver, and the CBI has relied on his testimony that details the alleged roles played by each accused, from conspiracy to logistics to surveillance and the killing. The case was earlier probed by the Navi Mumbai police and transferred to the CBI in 2008 after Anandibai approached the Bombay High Court.