Bhubaneswar, April 27: BJD president and chief minister Naveen Patnaik continued his exercise of meeting panchayat representatives to assess reasons for the party's poor performance in the recently held rural polls.

According to the rural poll results, though the BJD remains the number one party of the state with 473 zila parishad seats, it is down by 178 seats from last time. On the other hand, the BJP has done well taking its zila parishad seat tally from a measly 36 in 2012 to 297. The Congress has bagged only 60 zila parishad seats as compared to 128 in 2012.

Naveen today met the panchayat representatives of Sambalpur and Sonepur. During the meeting, he interacted with the grassroots-level workers in presence of senior party leaders. However, Naveen's exercise has not gone down well with his own party MP, Bhatruhari Mahatab. Earlier, he had even commented on the BJD's apparent lack of preparedness for elections compared to the BJP.

In his article - BJP seeking new a path: What about BJD? - Mahatab questioned the utility of district-wise review meetings of Naveen with his party leaders to assess its performance in the rural polls. Mahatab said: "No one is able to understand how the meetings will help cement the fissures in the party. Now this is the biggest challenge before the party."

Coming down on the party leadership, Mahatab, in his article, had said: "Its natural that the BJP is encouraged seeing its party's growth. But BJD leaders are busy in speech making and issuing statements from the state capital."

The debate over Mahatab's write-up continues. While some senior BJD leaders today targeted the Cuttack MP for criticising the party leadership in a newspaper article, Naveen said he was yet to read it.

Former minister Padmanabha Behera said: "Mahatab should have been more disciplined while commenting on party matters."

BJD MP Nagendra Pradhan said: "Once you are part of a party, you should be very cautious while making comments. He should not have made such comments, which could harm its leaders and lakhs of workers."

But, BJD MP Kalikesh Singh Deo was cautious in his remarks. "In a political party, the members have the right to express their frank opinion. That is something personal. The party's official stance on a particular matter is something, which can only be articulated by the party spokespersons or the party chief Naveen Patnaik."

After the review meeting with Naveen, Dungripali block president Makardhwaja Sahu said: "We apprised the senior party leaders of how the district and state-level leaders had failed to build up a rapport with the grassroots workers. The chief minister assured us of looking into the issue. The party will bounce back."

In a related development, more than 50 leaders from Gop and Nimapara in Puri today joined the BJD. "The leaders from the BJP and the Congress have joined our party," Naveen said.