http://cherylsdays.blogspot.com/2006/04/ church.html
Posted by Cheryl, a Canadian visiting Calcutta, on April 22, 2006

The elections in Kolkata are on Thursday. I've been told to stay close to home in case there are any skirmishes. The police and army are out in full force and it really should be quite safe, but everyone offers advice to the foreigner and takes care of me.

The communists are ruling in West Bengal, have been for many years and fully anticipate to get in again. Kolkata was very advanced and one of the best cities when they first got into power, but it went down hill for a time, large corporations pulling out etc but in the past few years, they have been drawn back in, malls have been built and everyone is pretty happy with them

http://hutnyk.blogspot.com/2006/04/revolutionary-tourism.html
Posted by John Hutnyk, London,on April 22, 2006

I have long been a revolutionary tourist. Years spent in Kolkata where the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI-M) has been the ruling ? democratically elected ? party for over twenty years. There even the Opposition parties are mostly communists, though sometimes this has led to fratricidal conflicts as comrade kills comrade. I was out on the streets souveniring red flags and photographing political wall slogans, emonstrations and million-person rallies.

The wall slogans have been banned in West Bengal’s present election ? a blow to political expression most agree, but Kolkata is still the city of politics. It's an easy place to travel, despite the reputation it has abroad, as a site of Mother Teresa-enhanced, reputation distorting, photogenic poverty... But despite what everyone usually hears of Kolkata in global media, when it appears as news it is either as curio or as another kind of politics, as sight of impoverishment or as “the longest freely elected communist democracy”, none of the representations seem to measure up to the reality