With the acrimonious Lokpal issue fading away in the dying days of 2011, the curtains go up in the New Year on what will surely count as among the most closely fought and closely watched set of assembly elections in the nation’s history. Whichever way the results turn out, they will have reverberations in Delhi, with a possibly definitive impact, for better or worse, on the political fortunes of Rahul Gandhi, and therefore on the leadership of the UPA Government.