Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar

A day after she resigned as Congress MLC and joined the ruling BJP, Pradnya Satav on Friday said she switched sides only for the sake of development.

She, however, stressed "Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will remain my idols forever".

Satav, the wife of late Rajiv Satav, a Congressman and close confidant of Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, joined the BJP on Thursday in the presence of its Maharashtra chief Ravindra Chavan and state revenue minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule. Her switch in the midst of local body elections is being seen as a setback to the Congress.

Speaking to Marathi news channel ABJ Majha in Hingoli on her return from the metropolis, she said, "I have joined BJP to fulfil the dream of development that Rajeev Satav saw. I have joined BJP only for the agenda of development. There is a backlog in Kalamnuri regarding irrigation, farmer related issues."

Rajeev Satav was MLA from Kalamnuri in Hingoli district in 2009. He was also Lok Sabha MP from Hingoli in 2014. He died in May 2021.

She said she managed to come back to Hingoli from Mumbai speedily due to the Samruddhi Expressway, an access controlled corridor between the metropolis and Nagpur in Vidarbha, which is often touted as one of the flagship infrastructure projects of the Devendra Fadnavis government.

Satav said she has joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party to contribute in such development.

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Responding to attacks by Congress leaders about how she switched over to the ruling side despite getting everything from the grand old party, Satav said, "I agree that I was made MLC by the Congress. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will remain my idols forever."

She claimed she had joined the BJP without any conditions.