Corruption curse follows India's Congress party to the polls

India's Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav holds the speech of railway budget 2008-09 in New Delhi February 25, 2008. REUTERS/B Mathur

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - For two decades, Lalu Prasad Yadav was a giant on India's political stage. He ran a state of 100 million people, he took charge of the country's massive rail network and his party was a crucial prop for the shaky coalition government in New Delhi.

Yadav managed all this despite a constant whiff of corruption around him. Indeed, he liked to thumb his nose at the law, riding triumphantly on the back of an elephant after a brief spell behind bars in 1997 as a crowd of admirers cheered.