Lok Sabha elections 2024: In a huge setback for the Congress, OP Jindal Group chairperson emerita and former Haryana minister Savitri Jindal on Wednesday late night announced that she is quitting the grand old party ahead of the upcoming general polls. While confirming the development in a post on X (formerly Twitter), Jindal said she took the decision to resign from the primary membership of the Congress on her family's advice.
What did Savitri Jindal say?
I represented the people of Hisar for 10 years as an MLA and have served Haryana state selflessly as a minister.
The people of Hisar are my family and on the advice of my family, I am resigning from the primary membership of the Congress party today. I will always be grateful to the Congress leadership for its support and to all my colleagues who always gave me their support and respect.
Naveen Jindal joins BJP
Savitri Jindal's resignation from the primary membership of the Congress party comes days after her son and Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) chairman Naveen Jindal joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Jindal will now contest from the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat as a BJP candidate in the upcoming general elections.
Savitri Jindal's political career
Savitri Jindal represented the Hisar constituency for a period of 10 years and also served as a minister in the Haryana government. In 2005, Jindal was elected to the Haryana Vidhan Sabha from the Hisar constituency after the death of her husband and Jindal Group founder OP Jindal in a plane crash.
She was re-elected from Hisar in 2009 and was appointed the cabinet minister in the Haryana government in October 2013. In the previous cabinet, she served as the Minister of State for Revenue and Disaster Management, Consolidation, Rehabilitation, and Housing as well as the Minister of State for Urban Local Bodies and Housing in 2006.
She, however, lost from the Hisar in the 2014 Haryana assembly elections.
Savitri Jindal net worth
Touted as one of India's richest woman, the septuagenarian matriarch of the Jindal Group has a net worth of $29.6 billion as of March 28, 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. She is the 56th richest person in the world and the world's seventh richest mother. Besides being the chairperson emerita of the OP Jindal Group, Savitri Jindal is also the president of Maharaja Agrasen College, Agroha.