India, Oct. 25 -- For once, both the ruling party and the opposition are raising the same alarm in Navi Mumbai: the integrity of the voter list. Belapur BJP MLA Manda Mhatre has alleged that election officials accept bribes to add bogus names to the rolls, while the Congress and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) have also flagged large-scale irregularities, demanding urgent corrective action before the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) polls.

Mhatre, a three-time legislator, has twice scraped through by wafer-thin margins-defeating former minister Ganesh Naik by 1,491 votes in 2014 and his son Sandeep Naik by just 377 votes in 2024. With the civic elections set to be held under a panel system, she warned that inflated rolls could d...