Kolkata: The honeymoon period for the newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in West Bengal is not over. Even so, different sections of the populace – the well to do, the poor and the middle classes on the one hand, and the less educated, the intelligentsia, civil servants, even small and medium business owners, evicted hawkers, delisted voters excluded from state government direct cash benefits on the other – all of these categories and classes are lost and confused about where the Suvendu Adhikari team is headed and more importantly how will it get where it needs to go.Can the BJP’s promise to restore glory and usher in “Sonar Bangla” be separated from the person who coined the phrase? In three weeks time, Bengalis will hold their bi-annual communion with Rabindranath Tagore, on his death anniversary on Baishe Sraban. It has been the practice of the West Bengal government to arrange a 15-day event around this date, reconnecting people to the “the Great Sentinel” or Gurudev, a title bestowed on him by Mahatma Gandhi, through daily performances of his music, theatre and poetry.Is the new regime going to ignore Bengal’s tryst with Tagore?This year, the BJP government has not, as yet, got around to even discussing with the Department of Information and Culture what is to be done. Does it indicate that the new regime is going to ignore Bengal’s tryst with Tagore, or, does it suggest that the department of culture will not be organising the usual programming on and beyond Baishe Sraban?Having initiated the ugly debate between Vande Mataram and Jana Gana Mana, having ceded primacy to the singing of the National Song and made it mandatory at all government functions, is West Bengal going to break off its decades long relationship with the commemoration of Tagore’s death anniversary. “Nobody knows,” is the response of a retired bureaucrat, who had in his heydays been associated with planning and delivering programming on the all-important occasion.Can the renaming of Lakshmir Bhandar (the unending coffers of the Goddess of Bounty) to Annapurna Yojana (the Goddess who feeds everyone) with double the direct cash transfer compensate for the exclusion of two categories of women – those who do not merit the benefit and those who were deleted from the voters list by the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls? In the second category of the excluded – women who have applied to the Tribunals for inclusion of their names and who have received domicile certificates after applying for citizenship – when will they find closure? The question that is haunting lakhs of women is simple – when will the uncertainty end?Some women beneficiaries of the Annapurna Yojana have received the payout. Some of their neighbours have not. The West Bengal government has not clarified why these exclusions have happened nor when these exclusions will be resolved, beyond stating that all women eligible for the benefit will get it.“It is clear to absolutely everyone that there is no clarity on the government’s priorities,” is how an economist put it. Governance is about the routines of keeping an administration functioning; governance is about setting priorities and breaking these down into smaller bits for the administration to implement; in other words, deliver the outcomes that emerge from the setting of priorities.The considered view is the priorities are unclear and therefore there is no checklist to track outcomes. The election that opened up West Bengal for the BJP had a manifesto. The charter set priorities. The actions of the Adhikari government appear to be directed at fulfilling those tasks. One of the first decisions of the Adhikari government therefore was securing the land to hand over to the Border Security Force (BSF) for fencing the boundary between India and Bangladesh. The expected outcome is success in keeping out “ghuspaithiyas,” or “illegal” Bangladeshi migrants.‘Push back’ of Bangladeshi migrants and eviction of hawkersThe other outcome is to send the infiltrated Bangladeshi migrants back over the boundary line and restore the demographics to an ideal status, that is, ensure that Hindus outnumber the Muslims. That being the ultimate objective, the Adhikari government started with a bang, “pushing back” Bangladeshis who volunteered to go back on the one hand and unverified Bangladeshis held in detention centres.For a few days, West Bengal was agog with the clearing out; now, that priority seems to have plateaued. One reason is the other kind of pushback from the Bangladesh government; the embarrassment of the regime after Sweety Bibi, her two children and several others returned via the Maldah border, having been forcibly deported after a botched and incorrect arrest by Delhi police on the assumption that they were illegal and aliens.The eviction of hawkers and illegal squatters on government property in railway stations, along railway lines and in congested urban areas was a manifesto promise. The promise was linked to the illegal occupation and earnings of people who were snatching away opportunities of locals, presumably Hindus, as the BJP leadership, including prime minister Narendra Modi declared during the campaign.Evictions, including evictions of licensed hawkers in railway stations, started with a bang; bulldozers were brought in. Inevitably, there was resistance from the hawkers and slum dwellers; the Left, including the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M))and the ultra Left Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPI (ML)), as well as the Congress physically intervened. The court was approached; stays were obtained and then there were more evictions.“The upwardly mobile middle classes were euphoric,” an academic observed; “they hailed the clearing of the pavements as a restoration of the rights of users of the pavement to free unimpeded movement.”In early July, the Adhikari government announced that there would be no further evictions till October, or rather the Durga Puja festival. Now, the hawkers are back on the street adjacent to Kolkata’s famous New Market, from where they were evicted in May. They have bought modern tents, replacing the tattered plastic sheets; they are back in business. The government has not explained how the evicted have returned; they just have.Selective support to Hindu religious celebrationsThere are now two categories of religious festivals in West Bengal. One lot, like the Jagannath Ratha Yatras and the Kanwariya Yatras are on the approved list. The other lot, specifically Durga Pujas with allegedly “corrupt” Trinamool Congress political patrons are under the scanner. The business of government, however, remains unchanged; selective support to Hindu religious celebrations.Soon after assuming office, the Adhikari government announced it would screen the beneficiaries of government grants for organising Durga Pujas. The encroachments on the streets would be regulated, he added. The richer clubs would be cut off from the Rs 1 lakh grant and subsidies, Adhikari had declared.The Adhikari government’s decision to grant Rs 5 lakhs to a shorter list of 50 Jagannath Ratha Yatras, shower flower petals from helicopters and construct shelters for Kanwariyas on their walkathon to specific Shiva temples across West Bengal, has jolted people, who approved of his curbs on the excesses of Trinamool Congress patronised Durga Puja committees.A lot of people, those who, in principle, disapproved on such grants for a religious festival and those who believed the grants were a waste of money and suspected mis-utilisation, were pleased with the decision. There were many in Kolkata, mostly middle class, from the top end and middle rung of the category, who felt the expenditure on Durga Pujas encouraged excesses that inconvenienced local residents and obstructed the free flow of traffic and pedestrian movement. Many were incensed by the carnival that the Mamata Banerjee government had introduced, insisting it was a waste of public money.In 2024, after the brutal rape and murder of a junior doctor within the premises of the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, many people responded to a boycott of the usual contributions to Durga Puja organising committees, as a protest.There is growing anxiety about the intentions and direction of the “Double Engine Sarkar” system. The bhadralok was influential through successive regime and ideological shifts in West Bengal politics. Their role has been downgraded; their contribution is no longer necessary in the public discourse on how West Bengal will be transformed into Sonar Bangla.It is an intrinsic part of bhadralok culture and society to nitpick, fault find, rave with approval and rage with disapproval, be argumentative and contrary. The new BJP government in West Bengal has them flummoxed. The usual protocols of government and governance seem to have been designed to exclude many and bring in a new cadre of intellectuals and bhadraloks, from the periphery to the centre. This new cadre are people with close ties to or affiliations with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); “they have recruited a new class of persons,” as one formerly influential bhadralok said, albeit sadly.The double engine system of government is a blow to Bengali exceptionalismThe double engine system of government is a blow to Bengali exceptionalism. It is beginning to chafe the sensitivities of Bengalis, especially its bhadralok.“The protocol of the Double Engine Sarkar is simple; do as directed by New Delhi; implement centrally designed schemes, “ was the summarisation of a former bureaucrat on the direction and performance of the Adhikari government. “All states have differences in culture and practice; homogenising governance is not the correct way to get things done,” he explained.The resentments can grow; or, the Bengali middle classes can compromise and reconcile themselves to doing things differently. At the bottom of the pyramid, there is simmering disaffection fuelled by the exclusion from entitlements, the obvious shift away from welfare politics and the alienation of the poor that goes with it. Grounded in reality, the working poor is acutely conscious that industrialisation is a long and slow process of recovery, which is a combination of restoring order, dismantling the structures of corruption and ending the nexus with power and politics. The BJP has just begun its innings in West Bengal; it has to learn more and co-opt the elite and the working class, before it can begin settling down.Shikha Mukerjee is a Kolkata-based commentator.