Polyphony from the Left

Want to try something more challenging than your daily Sudoku? Try and crack this puzzl

Want to try something more challenging than your daily Sudoku? Try and crack this puzzle. Why does Kolkata airport come to a standstill when the supposed reason for Leftist angst is the privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports? And that’s not all. Why does the Left Front government of West Bengal not oppose the privatisation of Kolkata airport? The answer to the two seemingly related questions becomes clear once you realise that the party that West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee belongs to may not be the same as the one that Prakash Karat and Co. have holding rights over in Delhi.

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The Communist Party of India (Marxist) — we have opened up the acronym just to ensure some clarity — is probably in the middle of one of its historic dialectical moments. In Kolkata, the pre-poll draft manifesto of the CPI(M) has airport modernisation on top of its list of ‘things to do’. Going by what the Brinda Karat Brigade has been stating with its perfectly synchronised arm-flailing choreography, the CPI(M) wants the Airports Authority of India to do the good job of modernising airports. What works for Mumbai and Delhi airports, it seems by the Left’s confident display of schizophrenia, does not work for Kolkata airport. The West Bengal government is planning to seek a private partner for the modernisation project in its own backyard. Which, just for the record, is obviously the right thing to do.

Two spectres are haunting India — the spectres of communism and something else. Our comrades, however, insist on calling the two by the same name. Bloody confusing for the bourgeoisie, if you ask us.