West Bengal Chief Minister’s first task: Take everyone along

Backed by a resounding mandate, the new Suvendu Adhikari government in West Bengal couldn’t be better placed to address the high expectations of “poriborton” or change. For the first time in nearly 50 years, governments in the state and at the Centre are led by the same party. But Chief Minister Adhikari faces tough challenges, too. It will be his responsibility to ensure that his government does not slip into the systemic inertias and blind spots that contributed to the downfall of its predecessor, the 15-year Trinamool Congress dispensation, and before it, the 34-year Left rule.

Since at least 1977, West Bengal has had a unique form of political culture and competition. The CPI(M) made the party a parallel state and the state an extension of the party. This smudging of boundaries led to the systematic weakening of governance and accountability on the one hand and normalised political violence on the other. If a citizen doesn’t get the ration due to her, should she go to the government or a party apparatchik? And if the line is dissolving between the party and the government, who checks its members when violence and intimidation become part of the political arsenal? The TMC under Mamata Banerjee did not dismantle these structures, only deepened and expanded them. The BJP, first and foremost, needs to break the 50-year pattern that has eroded trust in the state. There is also a formidable economic challenge staring the new government in the face. For long, even as its once-thriving industrial base has been hollowed out, Bengal’s young have continued to migrate to other states in search of livelihoods and opportunities — cutting across social and economic strata, from daily-wage earners to college students. It will be the Adhikari government’s task to create and expand opportunities at home, leverage all the advantages to bring manufacturing and services to the state. Welfare promises in terms of cash transfers and subsidies have their place, but they cannot replace infrastructure spending and employment generation, the backbone of sustainable growth.

The 2026 election campaign was shadowed by the Election Commission’s opaque and flawed Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. The voter turnout has been high and the scale of the BJP’s victory is formidable and impressive, but questions about the role of the EC and the judiciary remain. In the days to come, the polarising rhetoric in the BJP’s campaign, especially around the spectre of the ghuspaithiya (infiltrator), which became a term of communal dog-whistle politics, will also need to be dialled down. After his victory in Bhabanipur where he defeated former chief minister Banerjee, Adhikari framed his votes in terms divisive and exclusionary, claiming that Hindus had voted for him, not Muslims. After being sworn in as Chief Minister Saturday, he said he was sokoler — now everyone’s. He will have to walk that talk, he will need to speak to all the citizens of Bengal — those who voted for him and those who did not. For, to do justice to his mandate, which calls for wide-ranging reforms and building opportunities, and puts hope above despair, his government will need to take all the people along.