Ruling BJD president Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday asked party MLAs not to be disheartened by the trends emerging from the Odisha Panchayat elections and take it as a wake-up call.
"You should not be disheartened by the reverse. I advise you to take this signal seriously as a wake-up call and get reconnected to the people and workers at the grassroots level," Patnaik, the Chief Minister of Odisha, told BJD MLAs while addressing the party's Legislature Party meeting ahead of the Assembly's budget session.
According to the trends available so far for the Panchayat polls, the ruling BJD might lose about 200 Zilla Parishad seats, while the opposition BJP could secure about 300 Zilla Parishad zones. Polling was held for 848 ZP seats.
BJD had secured 654 ZP seats in the 2012 Panchayat elections, while the BJP had just 36 seats. "Make sure that all government welfare and development activities/programmes reach the people properly, effectively and efficiently," Patnaik said. The BJD president, however, said his party has returned as the number one party in the state after the polls.