By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans.
India currently faces numerous grim challenges, but the prospect of voting in the first-ever state government in West Bengal to be led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is no longer one of them.
Today, sitting Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’ Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) is as of the time of posting projected by the Times of India to cruise to a repeat victory, despite the personal appearance by Modi and several other BJP luminaries at numerous massive election rallies. In spite of the raging coronavirus crisis, India’s Election Commission only last week called a halt to the rallies – one of two crowd-convening measures the BJP promoted to shore up Hindu support. As economist Jayati Ghosh wrote in Why Covid-19 is Running Amok in India in Consortium News: