Congress Member of Legislative Council (MLC) Pradnya Satav joined the BJP in Mumbai on Thursday, hours after submitting her resignation from the Upper House of the Maharashtra legislature, reported news agency PTI.
She joined the BJP in the presence of the ruling party`s Maharashtra chief Ravindra Chavan and Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule, reported PTI.
Satav, the wife of late Rajiv Satav, a Congressman and close confidant of Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, hails from Hingoli district in the state`s Marathwada region. She was first elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Council in 2021.
Her switch in the midst of local body elections is being seen as a setback to the Congress.
After her husband`s death, Satav served as vice president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee. She was renominated to the legislative council in July last year, and her term was to end in 2030.
Earlier in the day, Satav submitted her resignation as an MLC to the legislature secretariat after speaking to Legislative Council Chairman Ram Shinde, sources had said.
Besides Satav, former MLA from Solapur district Dilip Mane also joined the BJP.
Elections to the 29 municipal corporations in the state will take place on January 15, and votes will be counted the next day.
Ex-Sena (UBT) corporator Tejasvee Ghosalkar joins BJP
Meanwhile, former Shiv Sena (UBT) corporator Tejasvee Ghosalkar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in Mumbai on Monday, ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls.
Tejasvee Ghosalkar, who had served as the Sena (UBT) women`s wing head in the Dahisar assembly constituency in north Mumbai, is the daughter-in-law of former MLA Vinod Ghosalkar.
Her husband, Abhishek Ghosalkar, was shot dead in early 2024 during a Facebook Live, allegedly by local resident Morris Noronha. Abhishek was also a former corporator of the BMC.
She joined the BJP on Monday in the presence of its Mumbai chief Ameet Satam and party MLC Pravin Darekar.
Later, speaking to reporters, Tejasvee Ghosalkar said she had worked diligently in the Shiv Sena (UBT) and would now work harder in her new party.
“I will accept any responsibility given to me by the party. There are many things I wish to say, but I cannot do so at the moment,” she said.
She also expressed disappointment over the slow pace of the investigation into the murder of her husband.
“The CBI probe into my husband`s murder is moving at a slow pace. I hope it will be completed at the earliest,” she said.
In September last year, the Bombay High Court handed over the probe into the murder to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), underlining certain lapses and loose ends in the police probe.
Tejasvee Ghosalkar was corporator of the (then undivided) Shiv Sena from 2017 to 2022. She had quit from her posts in the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena (UBT), citing personal reasons.
(With inputs from PTI)
