Bhubaneswar, Oct. 4: Senior BJP leaders Bijoy Mohapatra and Dilip Ray were conspicuous by their absence at the party's state executive committee meeting held here today to gear up cadres ahead of panchayat polls in Odisha due early next year.

"Our state-in-charge Arun Singh had spoken to me yesterday. I told him that I would not be able to attend the state executive meeting today due to some other preoccupations," Mohapatra told The Telegraph.

Though Mohapatra did not divulge reasons of his absence, it is a known fact that he has different views on the Mahanadi issue and the CBI investigation into deposit collection scam. Ray, the party MLA from Rourkela, was not available for his comments.

Earlier, a section of the senior party leaders, including Mohapatra, Ray and party's present legislature wing leader K.V. Singh Deo, had stayed away from the state executive committee meeting held in Sundargarh.

Today, the meeting discussed about its strategies for the coming rural polls due in February-March next year and decided to stage a rally in front of the Odisha Assembly next month to highlight the "failures" of the BJD government.

Announcing this, Odisha unit president Basant Panda said: "Besides holding a state-level rally in Bhubaneswar on November 25, the party will stage agitations at the panchayat level. We will start wall-writing in every panchayat, exposing the failures of the BJD government, and our workers will spread the message to every house," said Panda.

The party will prepare "charge sheets" against the Odisha government, based on the local problems, he said.

All the major political parties in Odisha have started campaign for the rural polls from Gandhi Jayanti.

The BJD has launched "Jana Sampark Yatra" (mass contact campaign) from Sunday, while the BJP has observed "Lajja Divas" (day of shame) highlighting the failures of the Odisha government. BJD supremo and chief minister Naveen Patnaik has harped on the "central neglect" bogey during the party campaign.

The Congress has also stepped up its mass contact programme at the grassroots level and initiated steps to form task forces at the panchayat level. Odisha has more than 6,500 gram panchayats.

The BJP today held its state executive after a gap of three months. The last executive meeting was held in June.

The political resolution, adopted at today's BJP meet, highlighted the Nagada malnutrition issue, Daana Majhi episode and the Gumudumaha incident (police killed five innocent tribal people of Kandhamal in the name of encounter with Maoists).

"These are glaring examples of Naveen Patnaik government's failures during its rule for the past 16 years," said the resolution while highlighting the failures in education, health, economy and law and order fronts.