Didi, as Banerjee is known to legions of TMC activists was seen standing just outside her tiled home door and admiring it days ago. The expression on her face was relaxed not giving the impression that the challenge of 2024 will pose any serious challenge to her in Bengal.

One does not have to read her mind or look into a crystal ball to guess it. An astute politician with the instincts of a street fighter, the TMC chief is always focused on the problem at hand with a penchant to tackle it head on.

It is this trait which has helped Banerjee to attain her present status. It has been since the cold January day of 1998 when she broke away from Congress and set up Trinamool Congress where she has the last word in decision making at the highest level to the daily nitty gritty of TMC's functioning..

Quizzed how the state of the Spiderman model represents the TMC, the answer is as clear as daylight. Like Spiderman climbing up the steep wall of a glass, steel and concrete condominium, the TMC too has scaled unscaled heights..

The latest peak TMC has flown its flag from is "political annihilation" of CPI(M) and Congress in the 2021 Assembly election which a wheel-chair bound Banerjee with a gammy leg led from the front. In this election, Banerjee also binned the invincibility of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP election juggernaut which had to screech to a halt in its track.

For the first time in post independence period, neither the Congress nor the Left is sans any representation in West Bengal Assembly. If BJP legislators led by TMC rebel Subhendu Adhikari occupy the Opposition benches in the House, their ranks are often thinned by defection to the Trinamool.

This electoral triumph set Banerjee on a path she had so far aspired. A claimant to lead the anti-BJP bloc in 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Just as she appeared to be in an unassailable position ground below her feet gave way as litigations together with CBI and ED teams armed with a clutch of serious charges of financial corruption swooped down on her nephew Abhishek considered to be political heir and her close associates.

Some of them including Partha Chatterjee and Jyotipriya Mallik, both members of her Cabinet are in prison. Anubrata Mondal whom Banerjee has diagnosed with "occasional stropping oxygen supply to his brain" was the key organisation man in Birbhum is marking time in Tihar jail these days.

These are similar incidents along with previous ones which the Spiderman model represents when it is unlit. Trinamool Congress seems to have the focus on it for the wrong reasons.

Unlike Spiderman, Banerjee and TMC whose heart and soul she happens to be, has slipped up. It is one of those dark periods which has visited her in the past.

Banerjee has never been chary of facing a problem however overwhelming it may appear. It has been so since she broke set from in 1998 with only Ajit Panja, a senior leader and a handful of faithful at her side.

But Banerjee's skills as a political strategist came to the fore at this point. She hitched bandwagon with BJP and won 7 seats in 1998 Lok Sabha elections. The flourish continued as Subrata .Mukherjee her onetime political mentor crossed over from Congress together with several other leaders swelling TMC's ranks.

The maverick political outfit swept away the CPI(M) from Kolkata Municipal Corporation forming the board. Mukherjee as mayor and the civic body's driving force did a good job though ego problems between the mayor and the TMC were never quite away from public domain.

Banerjee meanwhile has joined the BJP government as minister for railways raining projects on West Bengal and jobs to her supporters. It marked the beginning of expansion of her political base at the expense of the Congress and the Left led by CPI(M).

Assembly elections in 2001 saw TMC emerge as the principal Opposition party. Unpleasant surprise was in store for Banerjee as TMC and BJP were defeated in the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 and the duo parted company.

TMC's political fortunes dipped further as CPI(M) led Left Front attained a brute majority in 2006 assembly polls.. Its tally of seats in Lok Sabha earlier was reduced to one with Banerjee as sole party MP.

Many political columnists were on the point of peñning Banerjee's obituary. But then came Nandigram earmarked by Left Front government as a. chemical hub in which several farmers were gunned down by "policemen in flip flops as their footwear" and worse descending on their women folk.

Suddenly strong gusts of winds started flowing into TMC sails. Singur where plans for a small car factory together with ancillary units on mukti crop plots was aborted by the front dispensation which had developed a cold feet since Nandigram.

The shoe was clearly in Didi's feet. Lok Sabha elections 2009 results made the writing on the wall in bold for the Left Front.

It also saw Banerjee's sworn political rival and former Congress chief Somen Mitra contesting as a TMC nominee in Diamond Harbour. He won but left the new party to return to Congress.

The Assembly elections in 2011 saw TMC and Congress in an alliance with Banerjee calling the shots. The coexistence in the new government was short-lived with Congress leaving in a huff plagued by defections to TMC and many of its party offices taken over by the outfit it had helped to come to power.

The years that rolled by witnessed Trinamool getting better of its political rivals while being in the throes of one scam after another. It started with the Saradha chit fund scam, a Ponzi scheme which lured many to invest their funds in it which they lost after a few returns whose rate had nothing to do with existing interest rates in the market.

There were reports of its chief, Sudipto Sen having bought a painting by Mamata Banerjee for a huge sum. Sen was arrested from Kashmir after Banerjee blurting out that the fugitive has fled north.

Enquiry commissions were formed and Supreme Court directed a CBI probe into the matter. Come 2016 Assembly elections and Congress joined forces with the CPI(,M) to take on its onetime ally TMC., but the TMC improved its tally further.

Meanwhile, Narada sting operation live footages in which several TMC leaders including city mayor Sovan Chattopadhyay, number two in the state Cabinet Subrata Mukherjee, senior MPs Sougata Roy and Sudip Bandopadhyay were seen in camera taking currency note bundles. If it badly smeared the image of Banerjee and her party, the people reaffirmed their faith on both in elections.

Inarguably, schemes of Banerjee's government. and her girl next door image have still many takers. There are not too many avenues of employment and sops Kanyasree, Sabuj Sathi Lakshmir Bhandar to name wooing students who now vote at a younger age than before and housewives have endeared Didi to the .masses

It had indeed helped TMC combat electoral violence charges which hang round its neck and cannot be shaken away. But the majority seemed to have overlooked it if electoral success of the ruling party is any indication.

The road ahead now for the ruling dispensation of the state does not appear to be roses all the way. Ever since the induction of Banerjee's nephew Abhishek elected MP from Diamond Harbour, intra-party squabbles have cropped up.

As the newcomer is trying to build his own team, sparks fly between the greenhorns and veterans. Even Banerjee has to step in calling for an amicable combination in which the young must respect the seniors.

TMC’s chief vote catcher remains its charismatic supremo Mamata Banerjee. Though members of INDIA bloc, both Congress and CPI(M) have accused her of being in hand and glove with the saffron camp.

It buys her nephew immunity from the clutches of the central probe agencies, it is alleged. Banerjee already having hit the campaign trail is unfazed.

The TMC chief having snatched electoral triumph from the jaws of impending disaster however remains unfazed. For she is aware that her personal equation with Sonia Gandhi, still the power behind the throne in the Grand Old Party can help her muffle criticism from state Congress leaders.

The state Congress needs her badly in the coming election as CPI(M) activists are unlikely to campaign for it in West Bengal. In sum, Banerjee led TMC will have to contend with a faction ridden BJP and depleted Left.

None has won even in a single occasion against TMC post 2021 elections. But then public opinion being fickle, Banerjee seeks to take no chances and has already hit the ground running even as the voters are almost coming across fresh reports and visuals of the charges of financial misdemeanours of some of the party leaders and differences between the Young Turks and the Old Guard..TMC supremo has uncanny political sense and links with the masses. Already, TMC has prepared a draft lost f Lok Sabha candidates, the supremo is just waiting for the Congress to take the final decision. Mamata still remains the street fighter like her early days. She is once again on her mission to trounce the BJP in the coming Lok Sabha elections. (IPA Service)