Navi Mumbai, 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 political observer said, requesting anonymity. Naik's directive came close on the heels of short-lived bonhomie between the BJP and the Shiv Sena during the mayoral poll, when the Sena withdrew its candidates at the last minute, leaving the mayor and deputy mayor posts for the BJP. Naik wasted no time in asserting his dominance over the newly formed civic body. At a high-stakes meeting with newly elected mayor Sujata Patil and deputy mayor Dashrath Bhagat, he issued two crucial directions - formation of a high-level committee to audit the NMMC's operations during administrator's rule because "facts must be placed before the public"; and immediate revocation of "triple penal charges" on need-based houses in gaothans. The second directive was a populist move and positioned the elected body as the "savior" against an insensitive administration, political observers said. Ganesh Naik's son and former BJP MP Sanjeev Naik escalated the offensive, saying if corruption or irregularities were found during the audit, those guilty would face legal action. "Major financial and policy decisions were bulldozed through without public oversight during the administrator's rule. Absence of elected representatives weakened accountability," he said. "Those who looted the city will not be spared." Shiv Sena leader and Thane MP Naresh Mhaske, a close confidant of the deputy chief minister, issued a stinging rebuttal, accusing the BJP of political hypocrisy. "Those living in glass houses should not throw stones," Mhaske said, and threatened a "tit-for-tat" exposure of corruption during BJP rule if the party continued its aggression. Any audit must be comprehensive and not "selectively target" the period under Shinde's watch, Mhaske said. Belapur MLA and BJP leader Manda Mhatre, a fierce rival of Naik, said, "Let everything come before the public. The real truth will come out." Her comments were a warning to both the Shiv Sena and the Naik camp, observers said. By calling for "the real truth," she had indicated that a transparent audit might expose wrongdoings which could unnerve Naik as much as those who ran the NMMC before the civic poll, they said....