Aurangabad, Feb 07: Maharashtra Congress president Ranjit Deshmukh today said his party will give tickets for the coming Lok Sabha and assembly elections solely on the criteria of performance and the winning ability of the prospective candidates.

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the party's divisional rally of the SC and ST cell here, Deshmukh said the performance of prospective candidates in enhancing the Congress image among the people would be assessed besides their individual merits before decision on allotting party tickets was taken whether it was the Lok Sabha or the assembly elections.
The MPCC chief said the exoneration of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by the Delhi High Court would be made one of the important issues during the campaign by the party to expose the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP, he alleged had defamed late Rajiv Gandhi by implicating him as a recipient of alleged kickbacks in the Bofors gun deal for the last 17 years.
Referring to the acquittal of yet another former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao by the court in a corruption case, Deshmukh said this too would certainly strengthen the party.
Deshmukh slammed the NDA government at the Centre for presenting what he termed was ''an anti-poor mini budget before dissolving the Lok Sabha''. ''How are the poor going to benefit from mobile telephone ticket booking and 18 super fast trains?'' he asked.
The senior Congress leader also lambasted the NDA government for what he alleged as its ''anti-farmer policies'' such as the government's decision to import palm oil instead of encouraging domestic soyabean producers. The growers of soyabean, cotton and sugarcane had been affected badly due to such wrong policies, he said.
At least 56 co-operative sugar factories had closed down during last year in Maharashtra due to ''non-cooperation by the Centre'', he charged.
Bureau Report