However, five of the nine party members in the Lok Sabha, including Patnaik himself, attended the meeting. The four MPs, Tathagat Satpathy, Bhartruhari Mahtab, Prabhat Samantaray and Prasanna Patsani, who had written separate letters to the party chief earlier, urging him not to hold the executive committee meeting till the differences among top leaders were sorted out, also did not attend the same.

But the party secretary-general, Prasanna Acharya, Arjun Charan Sethi, Braja Kishore Tripathy and Padmanabha Behera and the three BJD Rajya Sabha members, including the Minister of State for Coal, Dilip Ray, were present at the meeting which was continuing till late evening.

Dissident leader and chairman of the party's political affairs committee, Bijoy Mohapatra, said that they haddecided to boycott the meeting since they had certain grievances against the party leadership.

According to sources, Naveen Patnaik had a telephonic conversation with senior legislator Sugnana Kumari Deo requesting her to attend the meeting. However, rebel MLAs maintained that they would attend the meeting only if their demands are met.

The rebels were demanding convening of a meeting of party MLAs and MPs before the state executive meeting, recognition of Prafulla Samal as the leader of the BJD legislature party by Naveen Patnaik and withdrawal of expulsion order against the MLAs.

Sources said that Naveen Patnaik was advised by his aides to put his foot down and not to succumb to pressure. If he gave in to the rebels, his leadership will be weakened further, they are believed to have told him.

According to sources, Union minister Dilip Ray also tried to bring about a patch up between the loyalists and rebels. Ray who met several rebel MLAs however did not get any encouraging response.

Meanwhile,the expulsion of the five senior legislators has drawn flak from both the factions. Several leaders even among the loyalists are not happy over such a hasty decision to save the `position' of a single leader. However, the loyalists maintained that the rebels could have submitted the resolution demanding the ouster of Ramakrushna Patnaik as the leader of the opposition to the party president instead of rushing to the Speaker and precipitating things.