India, May 9 -- Defeated by the very saffron force she once allied with, Mamata now faces the most searching moment of her career - one marked by questions over strategy, opposition unity, political miscalculations and the changing mood of Bengal. Her fall is a larger commentary on the volatile nature of power and personality-driven politics

The "stormy petrel of Indian politics"! She truly fits the bill of this adage. A fighter to the core who refused to accept the "injustice" done to her by her parent party, the Congress. She walked out to set up a political party of her own, squarely based on her street-fighting skills and enormous capacity to lead from the front.

Rising from scratch after remaining a Union Minister and president of ...