The political life of Abdul Sattar Nabi, who has been holding the responsibility of Silloud assembly seat of Jalna area for the last 15 years, is an example of hard work. Sattar started his political career by contesting Panchayat elections in 1984. After this, he crossed many other stages of politics and reached the post of MLA and is currently holding the post of minister in Eknath Shinde’s cabinet. Sattar, who started his journey with Congress, had decided to join Shinde faction after Shiv Sena split into two factions in 2022. He was a minister for some time in the Congress government in Maharashtra in 2014. In 2019, he left Congress and joined Shiv Sena. He has served as the state Animal Husbandry Minister.
beginning of political journey
Sattar successfully contested the Gram Panchayat elections in 1984 and entered taluka politics in 1994–95. After which, in March 1994, Sattar became the mayor of Sillod city. He approached the Congress to become a candidate for the Legislative Assembly elections in 1999, but was unsuccessful. He stood as an independent candidate and came second. In 2001 he was elected MLC of Sillod. After his tenure as MLA ended, Abdul Sattar contested the 2004 Legislative Assembly elections, which he lost by 301 votes.
Abdul Sattar Nabi was elected MLA from Sillod constituency of Aurangabad district in 2009. He won by a margin of 30,000 votes with the help of local political leader Prabhakar Palodkar, who had recently joined the Congress party after 12 years. In 2014 he won a second term in the Assembly and was appointed Cabinet Minister with the Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Dairy Development portfolio. In 2016 he also filed a petition to ban the sale of liquor in the state of Maharashtra.
On 22 March 2017, Sattar along with 18 other MLAs were suspended till 31 December for disrupting Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar during the state budget session and burning copies of the budget outside the assembly four days earlier. On 15 June 2017, a case was registered against Sattar and 29 others for rioting and attacking a farmer.
beginning of defection
On 19 December 2016, Sattar resigned as leader of the Congress party in Aurangabad district, claiming that the party had not cooperated with him during the 2016 local elections. On 30 July 2018, Sattar resigned from the Assembly in support of the Maratha quota demand, which would guarantee reservation of government jobs and education for Marathas. In March 2019, he was expected to be the Congress Party candidate for the Aurangabad Lok Sabha constituency. But Sattar, upset at being denied the ticket, resigned from the party. The Congress Party officially expelled Sattar for anti-party activities on 20 April 2019.
After which, in late March 2019, Sattar announced that he would join the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but the move was opposed by the local BJP leadership. Sattar later backtracked saying that his meeting with Devendra Fadnavis (BJP Chief Minister) was non-political. In late June 2019, Sattar met former Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and joined the party. After which, in view of the infighting in the party in 2022, he left Uddhav Thackeray and joined the Shinde group. After which in 2023, he was appointed Cabinet Minister of Minority Development in the Ministry of Auqaf and Ministry of Marketing in the Government of Maharashtra.
