THE duality in the BJP’s election campaign is getting exposed. At the top, there is a veneer of Modispeak about “development” and promise of good governance and employment. Lurking beneath is an intense communal campaign which is specially concentrated in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

THE BJP has, finally, released its manifesto for the 16th general elections. Its release, however reluctantly, is motivated by a public outcry that a party, which according to India Inc and its corporate media drum-beaters, has all but won the election to form the next government, has not spelt out its roadmap on how it shall steer the country’s future. It is unprecedented that its manifesto should be released after the polling process has actually begun. In the record of India's electoral history, one cannot recall, such an instance.

THE Congress party, with great fanfare, has released its manifesto for the 2014 general elections. Readers will recall that amongst the six national parties, it was the CPI(M) that first released its manifesto to the Indian electorate on March 20, 2014. The Congress manifesto, the country is being told, has been prepared on the basis of a “unique exercise” which is a “reflection of the voice of the people of India”. The manifesto opens with a claim “The open Manifesto Process: Pathbreaking Political Reform”.

SECTIONS of the India Inc, the self-appointed drumbeaters of the RSS/BJP’s prime ministerial aspirant, are scaling new heights in the euphoric support. We had the occasion in these columns in the past to note that such euphoria was a chillingly reminiscent of how sections of global capitalists openly assisted the rise of Hitler and fascism in Germany in the 1930s.