Congress leaders leaving the party and joining the BJP is not something that surprises anyone anymore. Since 2014, several politicians from the Congress have joined the BJP, even in Maharashtra, but in many of those cases, there were cases that the leaders were facing, or their political careers were not going anywhere within the Congress.
However, Pradnya Satav quitting the Congress and joining the BJP has come as a shock to many within the Congress, as Rajeev Satav, her late husband, was very close to the top leadership of the Congress, and the party has given her positions despite its depleting strength.
Pradnya Satav was made an MLC as the Congress high command insisted on rehabilitating her within the party. The same leadership insisted on another opportunity for her by giving her a full term of six years in the Legislative Council again by overlooking other leaders in the party.
Satav said, "I want to realise Rajeev Satav's dream of developing Hingoli under the leadership of Deva Bhaum, the development motto of sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas, sabka prayas."
On Thursday, Pradnya Satav resigned as a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) to join the BJP. Satav says her party workers were insisting that she join the BJP and become a part of the development agenda of PM Narendra Modi and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The BJP is likely to renominate her to the Legislative Council.
Rajeev Satav was close to Rahul Gandhi, and this was clear in Rahul Gandhi's condolence message on social media platform X after the Congress leader's death in 2021 due to Covid-related complications.
"I'm sorrowful at the loss of my friend Rajeev Satav. He was a leader with huge potential who embodied the ideals of the Congress. It's a big loss for us all. My condolences and love to his family," Rahul Gandhi had said.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had also condoled Satav's death, saying, "In Rajeev Satav, we have lost one of our brightest colleagues. Clean of heart, sincere, deeply committed to the ideals of the Congress & devoted to the people of India. I have no words, just prayers for his young wife & children. May they have the strength to carry on without him."
Rajeev Satav was National President of the Youth Congress and also in charge of the Gujarat Congress, and under him the party did well in the assembly elections in 2017. Rajeev Satav's mother, Rajni Satav, was also a Congress MLA. The Congress leadership has so far said it does not know what was offered by the BJP to her.
Senior Congress leader Nana Patole, "What has happened is not proper. We do not know what the BJP has promised her or what she has been offered."
