India, Jan. 10 -- In a dramatic turnaround in the Ambernath Municipal Council election battle, deputy chief minister and Shiv Sena president Eknath Shinde has outsmarted his state ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), by luring four Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) councillors and an independent member out of a BJP-led front and staking a claim to power in the civic body.

The switch has upended the post-poll equation in the 60-member council, where the BJP, after its controversial post-poll alliance with the Congress collapsed, sought to keep the Shiv Sena out of power by inducting 12 suspended Congress councillors.

The Ambernath Municipal Council was among the civic bodies that went to the polls on December 20 in the first phase of t...