SOME mainstream newspapers have carried editorials announcing the demise of the CPI(M) and the Left. They have pronounced judgement that the “Left is over” or that the Left is in terminal decline. 

Such obituaries have come in the wake of the severe defeat of the CPI(M) and the Left in the Lok Sabha election.  The editorial verdicts have come on the basis that the CPI(M) and the Left have got no seats in West Bengal and Tripura and only one seat in Kerala.

NOT a day passes in this election campaign without Narendra Modi attacking the mahagatbandhan or opposition alliance as a `mahamilavat’ (great adulteration) and depicting them as a bunch of power hungry opportunists. 

THE crisis that has gripped the Supreme Court in recent times has been further aggravated by the way in which the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and the Supreme Court have handled the accusation of sexual harassment leveled against the CJI himself in a written complaint made by a former Supreme Court employee, copies of which were given to all members of the Court. As a consequence, every effort should have been made to ensure complete transparency in the matter. But this was precisely what was not done.

PRAGYA Singh Thakur’s nomination as the BJP candidate from Bhopal constituency marks a significant and ominous moment in the 17th Lok Sabha election. This decision of the BJP is a declaration of its real platform for this election – an unapologetic hardline Hindutva with all its negative implications. 

THE Modi government has enlisted one more government agency illegally to serve its partisan political purpose during the elections. The Income Tax department has been unleashed on opposition political parties and their leaders. The last fortnight has seen a series of raids by IT authorities on leaders of political parties, ministers in non-BJP state governments, businessmen associated with these parties and key aides of chief ministers and ministers in non-BJP state governments.