After winning a bitterly-fought battle with the BJP to record her third successive victory in the West Bengal Assembly elections, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee seems to have emerged as a formidable challenge to the Centre's ruling party.

With leaders of different regional parties, including NCP chief Sharad Pawar, sending her congratulatory massages, the message from the Assembly election is clear that Banerjee is capable of taking the challenge of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, and combating it successfully.

Banerjee's Trinamool Congress had won or was leading in 216 out of 292 constituencies that went to the polls. "It's a victory for Bengal's people it's 'Banglar joy' (Bengal's victory)," Banerjee told her party workers, though she lost herself from Nandigram by a thin margin. Banerjee, set to be chief minister for a third term, however, stopped celebrations by her party workers.

The TMC's main rival, the BJP was stymied in its ambition of winning the state with a total tally of wins and leads in just 74 constituencies. The results were a bitter let down for the BJP as Prime Minister Modi had staked his prestige in declaring his party was set to win over 200 seats. Modi and his home minister Amit Shah campaigned extensively throughout the state spending almost every other day of a one-and-a-half month-long bruising campaign trying to breach the Trinamool Congress' fortress.

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