India, May 5 -- A woman in a male-dominated field, a fighter in a saree and the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) biggest impenetrable roadblock in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee is a political leader who has fought anti-incumbency sentiments and an aggressive campaign by rivals thrice consecutively. But in 2026 West Bengal assembly elections, luck and apparently peoples' mandate was not on her side.

The TMC chief, loved as 'Didi' by her supporters, failed to hold on to her fortress, which is finally within BJP's reach, for a fourth straight term. Not just did Mamata Banerjee lose West Bengal to a party she termed outsider, she also lost her bastion Bhabanipur to BJP's Suvendu Adhikari - her ex-close aide who ...