Mumbai, Mar 5 (Reporter) Walmik Karad, a close aide of former Maharashtra minister and senior NCP (AP) leader Dhananjay Munde who is known as his Man Friday, has been named as prime accused in the Beed sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh murder case and a Rs two crore extortion bid from a windmill company. Hailing from a humble farmers’ family, Walmik Karad used to show movies on VCRs in village fairs of Beed district. However, he came in contact with the Munde family and gained their trust by doing household chores like bringing milk and vegetables. In the 90s, Karad slowly became close to BJP stalwart Gopinath Munde (father of Munde sisters - Pankaja, Pritam and Yashashree) and his brother late Pandit Anna Munde (father of Dhananjay Munde). After Gopinath Munde passed away, Karad (54) became close to Dhananjay and called the shots in their hometown of Beed. Karad was identified as one of the close aides of the Munde family and his word was final on many issues in local politics. Both the Mundes and Karad hail from the Vanjari-OBC community. Karad has been named as the mastermind in the sensational murder of Massajog Sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh and running an extortion racket including a Rs two crore bid from the Avaada Group, a prominent renewable energy company. Karad hails from Pangri village in Parli tehsil into a humble poor farmer family. After completing his basic school education, he shifted to Parli town in Beed in the 80s, where he came in contact with the Munde family. The first unit of the BJP’s youth wing Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) was started in Parli by Karad under the leadership of senior Munde. In 1995, the election of the board of directors of Vaidyanath College, there was a scuffle in the general meeting for the election of the president, and a bullet allegedly misfired from the gun of the then police officer hit Karad in the leg - which increased the trust of the Mundes in him. In 2001, Karad contested the Parli Municipal Council polls and became a corporator and subsequently Deputy Mayor. When Dhananjay joined the undivided NCP led by Sharad Pawar, Karad followed suit. In 2023, when the NCP split, he chose to remain with Ajit Pawar. Over the past decade when Munde’s weight increased in district politics, Karad's word also started to gain respect. Karad faces more than a dozen criminal cases in Beed district, including cases of attempted murder, extortion, cheating, forgery, rioting, unlawful assembly, among others...////...