Monobina Gupta is Managing Editor at The Wire. She has worked in several news organisations including the Telegraph and the Times of India. She is also the author of Left Politics in Bengal and Didi: A Political Biography.
The first round of the local elections took place against a backdrop of widespread creeping fascism in France and comes after a brutal offensive by the far right, during which the traditional ‘Republican’ right has decisively broken from much of its historical framework and values.