Poll results: 'Bad guys' shown the door

Gandhian Anna Hazare's Mumbai protest was a damp squib to end 2011, a year that saw him become an anti-graft icon. But if Team Anna was hardly noticed in the frenetic poll campaign, victors genuflected to the altar of transparency and the vanquished mulled the lessons.

Samajwadi Party scion Akhilesh Yadav told a packed press conference after a hard won electoral win that he would ensure a "corruption free environment'' and action against the lawless.

And it wasn't just Akhilesh . Leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj also chose to call the mandate in five states as against "corruption, price rise and communal politics" of the Congress.

The claims gain a degree of credibility with the decisive manner in which the Congress was shown the door in Goa and was unable to cleanly oust the BJP from Uttarakhand. BSP chief Mayawati's fall from grace is also attributed to corruption cases despite an even record on law and order and development.

As psephologists pour over data to analyse how the public voted in five states, poll watchers feel clean governance and strong development credentials can no longer be underestimated as a fanciful notion that is bound to be subsumed by the politics of caste and communities.

Uttar Pradesh has not turned casteless, but the premium on governance is increasing, forcing Akhilesh to promise that the "goonda raj" associated with the SP in the past will not return.

Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal said, "The election has taught a lesson to political parties that the public will not be fooled. This is a demand for a strong and effective system to tackle corruption."

His colleague Prashant Bhushan saw it a little differently , saying that though corruption and Lokpal were major issues, people had been forced to choose an evil to "avert a bigger evil''.

Team Anna's cynicism about the political system did not rub off on voters, who cast their votes in record numbers. But the transparency agenda saw the BJP having to back-pedal after the inclusion of scam tainted Babu Singh Kushwaha.

The Congress has steadfastly denied Team Anna's electoral influence but the defeat in the recent Mumbai municipal poll is an unmistakable warning.

In public, Congress leaders maintained Hazare was not relevant to the results. "I do not think Team Anna was really... I was in Punjab for 15 days and I did not see their campaign reflected in any newspaper ortelevision channel ," I&B minister Ambika Soni said.

Team Anna member Kiran Bedi sought to take credit for the Congress defeat. "The Congress resistance to widespread anti-corruption movement cost them heavily... Recall the Badals, the BJP, the Left parties came to Jantar Mantar and publicly committed for an independent effective Lokpal and Lokayukta. The Congress did not,'' she tweeted.

Source~ The Economic Times