After former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar threatened to “expose” Prithviraj Chavan, the latter’s wife Satvasheela Chavan said her husband could not do anything wrong, and that she would have “divorced” him if he had. Her reaction came after Ajit Pawar told The Indian Express last week that he would “expose” Chavan as he had filed an RTI application seeking the number of builders and developers Chavan favoured in the last two months of his tenure as the chief minister. “My husband would do no wrong. I am pretty confident about it,” said Satvasheela, one of Chavan’s campaign managers. “Had my husband done anything wrong as chief minister or in his entire political career, my family and I would have ‘divorced’ him,” she added. By ‘divorce’, she meant “all of them would have stayed away from him” and “would have had nothing to do with him”. Satvasheela said she had said as much to her husband. One of the terms and conditions that was set for him when he joined politics, said Satvasheela, was to uphold the high values and principles that her in-laws stood for. “I was not keen on my husband entering politics. But once it was decided that he would enter politics, I had made it clear that his family’s honour should remain at the top of his agenda. I am glad, in over three decades, he has not done anything that could have hurt the family honour,” she said. And, she stressed, her husband is “a man of values and principles”. Satvasheela said she had inherited “high values” from her in-laws — both her father-in-law and mother-in-law had served as MPs at different times. “And I have passed on these values to our daughters and daughters-in-law.” Confident of a comfortable victory for her husband, Satvasheela said: “We are not money-minded, we are people-oriented people. Our doors have no security, anybody can come any time,” she said, adding that there was no threat from rivals, be it Vilas Patil-Undalkar, a rebel Congressman, or Atul Bhosale of the BJP. Satvasheela, who goes around the constituency along with her relatives, said they did not promise anything that they could not fulfil. “We don’t open our mouth so wide that flies can get into it,” she said. She added that she was campaigning in every corner of the constituency. “Ours is all about team work. Congress leaders and supporters are putting their best foot forward. Each one of us have been assigned a particular job, be it social media, looking after women’s wing, youth wing, rallies, corner meetings.,” she said. She said the Congress was regularly holding corner meetings and rallies.
