With 65-seat win, BJP clinches Navi Mumbai civic body for 1st time; MNS opens account with 1 seat, Shiv Sena wins 42

NAVI MUMBAI: BJP won 65 seats in the 111-member Navi Mumbai civic body in 2026, improving its tally from six corporators in 2015, and securing power in the city for the first time. Observers attributed the BJP’s performance to forest minister Ganesh Naik, who led his team to a clean sweep in the civic polls in Navi Mumbai after years of political struggle.In 2015, Naik dominated civic polls as a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which won 52 seats, and with the support of 10 Congress corporators and five independents, he ruled the city. The undivided Shiv Sena won 38 seats then. Experts said Naik continued to be a major force irrespective of his political affiliations for three decades. Naik kept switching parties from Shiv Sena to NCP to BJP now. Despite registering alandslide victory in the Belapur assembly constituency jurisdiction, represented by BJP MLA Manda Mhatre, who opposed Naik over distribution of tickets, Naik had to taste defeat in the Airoli assembly segment, which had been his bastion for decades. He lost more seats to Shiv Sena, which came as a huge surprise. Shiv Sena improved its tally by winning 42 seats in the 111-member civic body, with most of the seats coming from Digha, Airoli, Koparkhairane and Vashi. Naik faced defeat in Digha as all 12 seats were won by Shiv Sena led by Vijay Chougule, who had lost the assembly election to Naik last year. The Chougule family won four seats, including his own ward, in a tough fight.Chougule created a record in the new House with four corporators from a family for the first time in NMMC’s 30 years existence. Earlier, there were a maximum of three corporators from a family. Political observers said North Indians, considered among the biggest supporters of the BJP, voted against Naik in the slum pockets under Digha ward, which declined his winning tally.“We had expected a few more seats, but in many places, the margin of defeat was wafer thin,” said Sanjeev Naik, Navi Mumbai poll in-charge of the BJP. Shiv Sena-UBT won two seats, while its alliance partner Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) opened its account for the first time with one win. One independent won this time, compared with 2015 when five independent candidates had won. Both NCP factions contested separately but failed to score even a single seat this time.