“I believe that there should be respect in relations between political parties. But respect can only be gained if a political party has a strong organisation,” said Mukherjee. He was speaking at a function of the Pradesh Mahila Congress in Kolkata on Thursday.

“We have to strengthen our organisation to gain respect. If we do not have a strong organisation, our friends will continue to have a tendency to ignore us. They know that we will not be able to do anything even if they ignore us,” he added without mentioning Trinamool or its chief Mamata Banerjee.

Though the Congress entered into a political alliance with the Trinamool Congress ahead of the 2009 general elections, things have not been smooth for the party. Leaders and party workers have regularly complained to the party leadership about Trinamool Congress’ dominant attitude when it comes to seat-sharing.

According to the Congress leaders, the party was not given a single winnable seat in South Bengal by Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee in the last Lok Sabha elections. At a recent chintan baithak of the Congress, the leaders had expressed concern about the continuing electoral alliance with the Trinamool. Mukherjee, meanwhile, urged the party workers to strengthen the Mahila Congress, the women’s wing of the party. “There are several wings of a political party like the student and youth, peasants and workers and labour arms. The women’s wing is also very important cog in the party wheel,” he said.

He urged them to make people aware at the grassroots level about the women schemes formulated by the Centre.

“I will leave the details of the project. I know it might not be possible to distribute them during the convention. But I would request you all to learn about it and then to spread the details up to the anchal level so that more and more women are can be brought into the fold,” he said.

‘Bengal among worst performers in NREGA’

* The Left Front government in Bengal is among the worst performing states in providing work to rural people under the National Rural Employment

Guarantee Scheme, Pranab Mukherjee said on Thursday.

“West Bengal is among the states which are lagging behind in implementing the scheme,” and pointed out that the state had failed to provide 100 days work to the rural poor as mandated under the Act.