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May Day 2024 falls during the on-going election campaign for 18th Lok Sabha in the country to decide the destiny of this great composite culture and civilization once again. We want that the people choose to vote out the disastrous rule of RSS-BJP and would resolve for prolonged battles ahead to put the country back to functional democracy, respect to core values of right to dissent and freedom of expression, respect and acceptance of the pluralism of religious beliefs, languages, culture, food and dress habits as enshrined in Indian Constitution.

The polling to the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala in the second phase of elections on April 26 is of crucial significance to the two communist parties CPI(M) and the CPI for their future role in the turbulent post election days of the Indian polity. The fight between the two INDIA bloc partners in the course of the intensive campaign has been full of acrimony as both the CPI(M) led Left Democratic Front and the Congress led United Democratic Front were fighting for establishing their political supremacy in the state, but finally, whoever wins will belong to the INDIA bloc. That is the most welcome factor in this state which boasts of a highly literate and politically agile electorate.

The prime minister’s vitriolic speech of April 21, delivered two days after the first phase of polling of the Lok Sabha elections, has been widely condemned both in India and abroad. The language and bigotry which he displayed to incite hatred against the Muslim community and the political parties whom he accused of favouring them were reminiscent of the rhetoric he employed in his speeches immediately after the Gujarat pogrom against Muslims that happened in 2002when he was the chief minister. It is important to analyse why he has felt the need to revert to them once again so early in this election campaign.

Will the Calcutta High Court hold West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee guilty of contempt of court? Political circles are abuzz with anticipation ever since Banerjee came out with her sensation allegation: “They (the BJP) have bought off the Calcutta] High Court.” Her disenchantment with the functioning of the Calcutta High Court was evident in her remark that the HC declared the 2016 SSC recruitment null and void under the influence of the Modi-led BJP, the ruling party in the Centre.

Skies are clear and the heat unbearable. Will people step outdoors to vote? The first phase saw some reluctance. One more lacklustre phase and Prime Minister Narendra will have nothing new to coin. But voting is being tied to the ‘mangalsutra’ and it ain’t different in Maharashtra where Uddhav Thackeray is under pressure to prove his Hindutva credentials.

With second phase of election on April 26, Lok Sabha election on all 25 constituencies in Rajasthan will conclude. In every constituency, the Congress has offered BJP tough electoral battles, which made none less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lose his cool, who out of frustration started communal tirade against the Congress during the second phase of election campaigns. In such a close electoral battle, we are bound to see the state bringing up surprises, and hence the certainty expressed about BJP’s winning all the seats has given way to uncertainties.

It was May Day when workers all over the world were waking up to the reality that they too have rights, as a class. For us in India, outcome was All India Trade Union Congress that came into existence in 1920, with Lala Lajpat Rai as president. Capitalism had started settling in. Even in agrarian sector, it had entered forcing the peasants to slog on their own fields like agri workers with a pittance of return not even enough to meet the basics. Industries were coming up in urban areas like in Bombay, there were cotton mills and in Calcutta, jute mills and so were workers, slogging for sixteen to sometime even twenty hours without a right of their own.

For the sake of record, the Election Commission has said that it is examining the complaint made against the speech made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally in Rajasthan where he had said that if Congress is elected to power at the Centre, it would mean redistribution of people’s property, land and gold among Muslims. If past instances are anything to go by, the commission’s assertion is like a line drawn on water.

People gathered to hear PM Narendra Modi in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh on April 22, just two days before the end of election campaigns for the second phase of Lok Sabha election 2024, were surprised when they heard him lowering the pitch from the high pedestal of BJP’s sloganeering “Abki baar, 400 paar” to merely “Abki baar, Modi Sarkar.” With equal surprise people received it reported in the media. Perhaps Narendra Modi has realized by now that his target is failing, despite the first win of the party from Surat in Gujarat unopposed, after rejection of nomination of Congress candidate and withdrawal of nomination by all others triggering a great controversy.

KOLKATA: The Second phase of 18th Lok Sabha elections starting on April 26 will have a strange commonality with the first phase in West Bengal. Just like the April 19 elections, it remains to be seen whether the three constituencies represented by BJP MPs in the second phase stand their ground or fall to Trinamool Congress or INDIA coalition's onslaught when the results are declared on June 4.