As expected, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has lost more leaders to the BJP. On Tuesday, MLA Sandeep Naik, son of influential NCP leader Ganesh Naik, and three other opposition MLAs, resigned from the Assembly, ahead of joining the BJP. Sandeep's father, brother Sanjeev and over 55 corporators of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) would follow the Airoli MLA very soon, said sources.

Along with Sandeep from Airoli, two other NCP legislators, Shivendraraje Bhosale from Satara, Vaibhav Pichad from Akole and Congress's Kalidas Kolambkar from Wadala have also quit. All of them will join BJP on Wednesday at a special event. Vaibhav's father Madhukar, who served as an NCP minister, is also expected to join BJP. All NCP office-bearers in Vaibhav's constituency have already resigned to enrol themselves as BJP members when their leader joins the party. Similarly, NCP workers and local office-bearers in Satara have also quit the party.