If cricket and politics are the two things closest to a Bengali heart, football having been relegated to a poor sixth or seventh after food, ‘adda’ and arguments over all the above, then Mamata Banerjee is in that ‘zone’ where every shot you play, including mishits, races past the field – and beyond the boundary rope.

Banerjee, as any fourth-grade student in West Bengal would tell you, is equal to Virat Kohli, now that the panchayat election results are out. Stretching that analogy just one bit more, the Congress then would be equal to or lesser than Gautam Gambhir (once a partner but not even on the field any more), the Left Front equal to or lesser than Virender Sehwag (yesteryear hero but tough to spot post-lunch) and the BJP is Bengal’s Kandumal Konde (whoever that may be).

Having won over 55 percent gram panchayats, the lowest of the three-step panchayati raj, and 13 of 17 zila parishads, the highest organisation in panchayati raj system, the question is whether the Trinamool Congress would deliver the Left an innings defeat in the next general elections. Having performed worse that it thought it would, given the chances of anti-incumbency following two years of Mamata-giri in the state, rising disenchantment keeping pace with the northward crime and unemployment graph, the Left is today advancing arguments that Banerjee held sway over for nearly two decades: booth capturing, rigging, bomabaji (translated strictly, violence with crude bombs). In the average Bengal politician’s lexicon, those are trademarked words of the opposition.

Banerjee, in turn, is talking the Left’s language: victory of democracy, power of the people and so forth. Like the archetypal glib-tongued Gandhian victor, she even asked for peace and calm in the aftermath of the victory on Tuesday (July 30). And to her credit, the chief minister has so far held back her loose cannon of a tongue – without even taking part in the let’s-take-potshots game, she even left for Mumbai the following day, with a meet scheduled at the World Trade Centre in Worli on August 1 to invite investments in the funds-starved state, though truth be told, media reports say only the likes of Bappi Lahiri have sent advance consent to be present, with signs of few industrialists as yet.

So, back to the political square: is it going to be an innings defeat? From most accounts, yes. Most pre-poll surveys are predicting a bigger sweep for Trinamool, though a Times Now-C-Voter survey forecasts an increased tally for the Left front as well – primarily thanks to Kerala, while its numbers slide in Bengal. Many numbers in the five-phase panchayat elections also indicate a Trinamool victory by huge margins, if not by an innings.

A random glimpse at the West Bengal state election commission’s (SEC) website throws up interesting figures. Take, for instance, Salanpur zilla parishads (ZP) 1 and 2 in Burdwan that the CPI(M) won in both 2008 and 2013 (taking Trinamool-won seats would be futile, for they are so obvious and huge in numbers). In 2008, of 35,825 votes polled in ZP-1 CPI(M) candidate Jharna Sinha won 15,849, against Kabita Bouri’s (Trinamool) 1,245. This time, out of 43,436 votes polled, Tapasi Chowdhury of the CPI(M) secured 15,619, with Trinamool’s Jamuna Samadder nearly breathing down her neck with 14,223.

In the other seat, the gap declined from 8,343 (CPM’s 9,605 to Trinamool’s 1262) to only 1,624 (or, CPM’s 9,092 minus TMC’s 7,468). It’s not that the CPI(M), or the Left, has declined big; it’s just that the TMC has advanced bigger – and all at the cost of the Congress.

But Lok Sabha elections being a different ball game, Mamata Banerjee and her party cannot do the transfer arithmetic from these results and sit relaxed. For one, the Centre won’t be taking it that easy so far as deployment of paramilitary forces are concerned, and from all accounts, the big flare-ups and violence, and what the Left and Congress claim booth capturing and forcible exclusion of their voters, were reported from areas lacking proper forces.

Mira Pandey, the state election commissioner who has been at loggerheads with the Banerjee government (read our earlier report here) over troop deployment, said on July 30: “There were several instances of the government not acting according to our instructions. It wasn’t what was expected, at times. That’s all I will say.” The Trinamool bowlers, fielders and marksmen won’t have it, arguably, that easy come 2014.

For another, despite her efforts to woo the Muslim electorate, the Trinamool failed to make much dent in Muslim-dominated districts like Malda, Uttar Dinajpur and Murshidabad, and several areas of North and South 24 Parganas districts. So though the party has taken away the ‘Red fort’ in central Bengal, Mamata Banerjee knows better than most that it takes only a Singur or Nandigram to turn the tide – and ride the wave. In fact, the Salanpur ZP story can be repeated with the caste changed in many areas here, with the Left losing by a few tens or hundreds of votes.

And given her loose cannon of a tongue, explosive temperament and unreliability of her cabinet colleagues and cadres to hold back either, she will not guarantee that the opposition would not find another Singur and Nandigram in her administration before 2014 that would not be her Waterloo.