Manoj Agrawal, director of Govinda starrers Hadh Kar Di Aapne and Pardesi Babu has been left shocked by what Bollywood's ace art director Nitin Desai has done with him.

For the last four years, Manoj had been researching and working on a film on Rani Padmini, for producer Ketan Desai (son of legendary filmmaker Manmohan Desai).

Ketan had got in Nitin Desai as production designer of the historical film which was titled Chittore - A Saga Of Love And War. But even before the film could roll, Nitin has gone ahead and produced a television serial on the same subject. The serial, Rani Padmini Of Chittor Ka Johur, has gone on air on Sony TV from Monday 18th May.

A very de­jected Manoj states, "I can't believe that my efforts of the last four years have gone down the drain.

Nitin Desai has stolen my subject. We had collaborated with the art director on this project, for one full year. It was just few months back Nitin called me over and told me that he wanted to serialize Rani Padmini's story.

He asked me to join him as a partner. I told him not to serialize it as we both had worked very hard to make a film on the subject. Little did I know that he would go ahead with the television serial in spite of this. I feel cheated."

Industry sources claim, Nitin Desai had built the huge palace set at his Karjat based studios for Ashutosh Gowariker's Jodhaa Akbar and is now wanting to milk it by making serials based around it. He first began by making the serial on Shivaji for a Marathi channel and now he has gone ahead with Rani Padmini serial.

Nitin Desai wasn't available for comments.