New Delhi: NCP, a constituent of the UPA, on Saturday squarely blamed the "rug pulling activities" of Congress for its poor show in the Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra as also Goa and Bihar.

"In Maharashtra, where we won eight seats, lost five seats including two sitting seats because of the rug pulling activities of our partner. The experience in Goa and Bihar had also not been different," the party said in a draft resolution to be placed before its national convention tomorrow.

Noting that the party had fought the Lok Sabha elections in the three states in alliance with Congress and in about a dozen states on its own, it felt that the alliance politics also did not give it good dividend.

It also said that in the dozen states it contested without aligning with anybody, it could win only one seat and that is from Meghalaya.

"This shows that whether we fight independently or in alliance, winning the seats depends upon the organisational strength and popular support of our party leaders," it said underlining the need to expand the party's base.

Asked about the party's message to Congress in UPA-II, party general secretary D P Tripathi, who had during UPA-I maintained that coalition does not mean "fiefdom" of any party, said "our message to Congress is political togetherness." He said "NCP is there to emerge and not merge" when asked whether the party could merge with Congress in future.