OTTAWA — The prime minister said Wednesday that a controversial “push poll” in Saskatchewan followed all the rules, hours after a senior Conservative MP from that province denounced the robocall as “deceptive” and said the party’s political director should be held responsible.

“The party has already explained that it has followed the rules and the law in this situation,” Stephen Harper said.

The telephone poll — which appeared designed to rally opposition to riding-boundary changes the Conservatives oppose — went out last Thursday night. On Friday afternoon, Fred DeLorey, the communications director for the party, told the Citizen the party was not doing the calls.

On Tuesday, after an American forensic audio analyst matched a voice message associated with the robocall to the owner of Conservative call provider RackNine Inc., DeLorey issued a statement for the party taking responsibility for the calls and saying there had been an “internal miscommunication.”

Wednesday, Tom Lukiwski, the government’s deputy House leader, told Saskatoon radio station CKOM the calls were “deceptive” because they didn’t identify that they came from the party. On CBC Radio, he said that the party’s political director, Jenni Byrne, should be held responsible.

But when NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair stood in the House of Commons and accused the party of lying about the call until presented with proof, Harper said it had followed the rules.

DeLorey and Byrne did not respond to calls or emails on Wednesday to explain how the calls complied with CRTC rules — which require that such calls identify the source — or to say why it took the party so long to realize that it had made the calls.

On the CBC phone-in show, Lukiwski said he was unhappy about the calls, and blamed the party.

“I don’t know which party official it would be, but I know that Jenni Byrne, who is the executive director, said, well, ultimately the buck stops with her,” he said. “She would take full responsibility.”

Byrne, who keeps a low public profile, is known as a talented, tough and formidable operative, fiercely loyal to Harper.

Saskatchewan’s one opposition MP, Liberal Ralph Goodale, this week sent a letter to the CRTC asking for an investigation based on his suspicion that the call broke telemarketing rules by failing to identify the originator.

Since the summer, Conservative MPs have repeatedly responded to questions about the robocalls affair by pointing out that the only finding of wrongdoing has been against Guelph Liberal MP Frank Valeriote’s riding association. The association paid a $4,900 fine for a CRTC violation over a late campaign call that attacked the Conservative candidate for his position on abortion, without identifying the Valeriote campaign as the sponsor of the call.

CRTC does not publicly acknowledge investigations until they are concluded. The investigation into the Guelph call took almost five months.

Wednesday, the Conservatives appeared to have lost their appetite for challenging the conclusions of the independent Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Saskatchewan, which recommends creating five entirely urban seats in Regina and Saskatoon — a redraw thought to disadvantage the Tories in the 2015 election.