India, July 17 -- Days after stepping down as the Pune district president of the Congress, former MLA Sanjay Jagtap on Wednesday officially joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at Saswad in the presence of Maharashtra BJP president Ravindra Chavan. Jagtap, who represented the Purandar assembly constituency in the past, was accompanied by his supporters.

Speaking to the media earlier, Jagtap said his followers had unanimously agreed that joining the BJP was the best course to address developmental issues in the constituency.

Reacting to Jagtap's defection, Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal took a sharp dig at the BJP, accusing it of trying to hollow out Congress by poaching its leaders.

"The BJP behaves like a witch,...