Three months after handing over the keys to the town of Nabanna, Mamata Banerjee is on the receiving end of a police complaint in her own city. On Saturday, the Kolkata Police had opened an FIR against the former CM and Chairperson of Trinamool Congress for violating conditions imposed by the Calcutta High Court on the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad 'foundation day' function, filed suo motu. The case was filed at the Hastings Police Station in various sections of BHU crime, including those related to unlawful assembly, obstruction of public way and disobedience of Court order.

The “back-story” is quite simple. The TMCP had applied to organise its foundation day programme on Friday at the Cathedral Road in the city's heart. With this permission, the High Court added a proviso: that one side of the road must be open for a duration of the event. The police say that was not done. The road was completely blocked and commuters had to spend hours stuck on it; by Saturday morning, investigators had more on file than just the usual suspects for crowd-management failures, which are the local organisers, and Banerjee herself. As investigations continue, the roles of all involved and the personal responsibility of Banerjee will be looked at, a police officer told reporters.

The fact that this FIR is so noteworthy is that it's not the crime itself, which is rather regular for Kolkata, but the person it's filed against and the political moment. Just four months ago Banerjee was the sitting chief minister and for 15 years prior the government that determined which cases moved and which languished and died in silence. This phase of the era came to a close on May 4 when West Bengal began counting votes for a bruising two-stage election held on April 23 and April 29. With an overwhelming majority 294 out of 294 seats in the Assembly the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the elections, even surprising its own planners, and Suvendu Adhikari, a former Trinamool ally and Banerjee's protégé who had defected, became chief minister on May 9. It was a feat for her party to lose Banerjee, who has been in power since 2011, to Adhikari by such a margin especially ten years ago. She is now in the assembly as a leader of an opposition that is down in size, not as a leader of government.

The real story, buried beneath Saturday's paper, is the turnaround. Throughout her years of service, Banerjee's detractors levelled allegations of the state police being an extension of the ruling party, and acting sluggishly against Trinamool members, but swiftly against opposition workers. That may or may not have been an accurate assessment in all cases, but it influenced the national perception of the politics of Bengal. Within hours of an alleged violation, the same police force, which was once under her command and is still overseen by the same officers, has opened a case against her, without any complaint filed by any other political party. A separate FIR was filed against Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien after a brawl erupted when a civic team, which had accompanied police, tried to pull down an unauthorised party hoarding on Camac Street on Friday. The attacks on 48 of the party's top leaders within two days of the party's formation is something the old Trinamool system would not have been able to tolerate in silence, and something the new administration is not particularly inclined to back down on.

There is the governance argument in all of this and it is more than the discomfort of one party. The State has entered this transition with an economy that had, by the estimates of the previous government itself, expanded to the gross state domestic product level of nearly nineteen lakh crore rupees, with growth rate as high as the national average during the last few years under the Trinamool government.

Despite the opposition parties and independent economists raising alarms over the state's debt, which had swelled to several lakh crore rupees, and also over independent economic programmes, like Lakshmir Bhandar, which were taking away funds for capital expenditure, investment commitments worth lakhs of crores were being extended during the past two editions of the Bengal Global Business Summit's investment lounge.

The one thing that investors watching from outside Bengal might be curious about in episodes like this FIR is whether the court order, permission and rules are issued in a predictable manner or if they still deviate based on the whims of whoever wielded power this week. A state that's seeking global capital can't be perceived as being a state where the politically connected can choose not to get a road-closure permit.

As predicted Trinamool has dubbed the case as "vindictive" given the years its leaders have suffered from selective use of central agencies against them. The BJP, on its side, will with predictable fervour declare it to be proof that the law applies equally. Both readings fail to capture the more lasting insight.

The establishment, which have been in place for the last 15 years has lost all its power and the institutions that were meant to enforce neutral rules, courts, police stations and civic bodies, are now being tested to see if they can do the same no matter which party is named in the FIR. That test is going to be important for a much longer time than this case of a road blockage and what Bengal and its investors will get from it over the next few months will be a much better indication of the state's future.