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BJP brushes all its Lokpal moralising under the red carpet for Kushwaha & Co

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Over the last several months,the BJP has been on the high horse. There it was,lending its voice to Anna Hazares high-voltage campaign,marking attendance on his stage

at Jantar Mantar while Parliament was still in session. Before that,L.K. Advani had embarked on his own tourathon against corruption,raging against black money,targeting the UPA. More recently,before the Lokpal bill debate took over the House,the main opposition party stopped talking to the countrys home minister,accusing him of involvement in the 2G scam. Through it all,the partys self-righteous tone has not wavered. But as recent developments in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh underline,there is a hole in the halo.

In UP,the BJP has just welcomed into its fold Babu Singh Kushwaha and Badshah Singh,former ministers in the Mayawati government,both sacked on graft charges. Kushwahas sacking in particular was a high-profile event,given that the long-time Mayawati aide was seen to preside over the NRHM scam which was alleged to be the reason behind the murky saga of the murder of two CMOs and the death of

a deputy CMO. Whether or not Kushwaha makes it to the BJPs final list of candidates,the party has been tainted by his rehabilitation. To be sure,there is more bad news from UP and it involves other parties as well,from smaller players like Ajit Singhs RLD,which has just taken in the man who announced the Rs 51-crore bounty on the head of a Dutch cartoonist in 2006,to the SP which is reportedly debating the entry of history-sheeter D.P. Yadav. Yet there is something particularly ungainly about the picture of the BJP swallowing its own fiery rhetoric so soon after it raged on the Lokpal in Parliament.

The pre-poll musical chairs of the criminal and the corrupt in UP frames another truth: Team Anna,with its neat battlelines,has completely missed the point. Quite simply,corruption has no fixed address or a one-stop solution. It will have to come in several shapes and sizes and it will demand commitment from us as well as them.