India, Jan. 14 -- The introduction of the multi-member panel system for the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections has fundamentally redrawn the city's civic political landscape.

With the satellite city moving from 111 single-member wards to 28 multi-member panels, what was once a hyper-local contest rooted in personal rapport and ward-level work has become a numbers-driven exercise dependent on organisational reach and vote transferability across much larger geographies. It has triggered strategic defections across parties and pushed independents to the margins even as voters struggle to adjust to a more complex voting process.

The Maharashtra government introduced the panel system professedly to ensure collective leadership and b...