India, Feb. 12 -- Forest minister and BJP strongman Ganesh Naik met the newly elected mayor of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC), Sujata Patil, and directed the civic body to release a "white paper" based on an audit of the NMMC's operations during the six-year administrator rule preceding the civic poll.

Naik claimed the "white paper" to be an exercise in transparency. But political observers said it was in fact a precision-guided missile, as the administrator rule came directly under the purview of deputy chief minister and urban development minister Eknath Shinde.

"The BJP's move is a direct challenge to its own alliance partner, the Shiv Sena, and threatens to turn the NMMC into a new theatre of internecine conflict," a p...