Bhubaneswar, July 21: Senior BJP leader Bijoy Mohapatra today targeted the party's state leadership and said there was a need for introspection after the party miserably lost the zila parishad election in Nuapada.

Nuapada is BJP's Odisha president Basant Panda's Assembly constituency. "The zila parishad result will certainly have its impact on the party. There is a need for introspection," Mohapatra said.

Speaking to the media, he said: "Party president Amit Shah has to look into these issues. He will take a call on this issue. I have nothing to say."

In the zila parishad election, the Congress emerged second relegating the BJP to the third position. In the Nuapada constituency, there are 14 zila parishad seats. The BJP failed to win a single seat in the district while the BJD had won nine seats and Congress five.

While many BJP leaders were critical of the results, none of them had spoken out openly on the failure. After Mohapatra raised the issue, the party targeted him saying that he should turn the mirror inwards instead of criticising the party leadership.

Lately, Mohapatra has been sidelined by the party and is not being invited to major BJP programmes.

Mohapatra, who was last noticed in a major new conference of the party when K.V. Singh Deo was the president, has not been invited after Panda, a close associate of Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan, took over reins of the party.

Party's general secretary Prithviraj Harichandan said: "He should first go for his own introspection. The party is moving in the right direction. The people have accepted it. For the party, Odisha's development is the only issue and there is no other issue."

However, BJP president Basant Panda said the party had lost the election as the BJD used money and muscle power. "Even the government machinery was used in the election," he said.

BJD leader and minister Surya Narayan Patro said: "With the miserable defeat of the party in the constituency of its party president, it is now clear that the people of Odisha will reject the party. Their dream of coming to power in 2019 will only remain a dream."