 "Mamata magic powers Trinamool to record tally")
Banerjee who had remained indoors since the elections, went through the entire spectrum of emotions, as she addressed a press conference on Thursday, after the trend emerged.
"A smear campaign was launched against us for the last two years. Several canards were spread. We are thankful to the people for rejecting the smear campaign and conspiracies," she said.
Banerjee's government will take oath on May 27; on May 29, a session of the Assembly will be held.
The swearing-in ceremony is likely to be on Red Road, one of the busiest in central Kolkata, as opposed to the Raj Bhavan.
In another deviation from the earlier assembly elections, when Banerjee had dissuaded workers from victory celebrations, she announced victory celebrations would start from Friday and continue till May 30. Perhaps the TMC's overwhelming results have something to do with the aberrations.
The TMC has come back with 212 seats, compared with the 184 it won in the last assembly election that it fought with the Congress as an ally.
"We have fought this election alone. The Opposition was united against us. People have given us a huge victory," she said.
This election, the Congress had an alliance with the Left Front.
But as Banerjee thundered, the alliance turned out to be a blunder. "The CPI (M)-Congress have lost everything." Poll results corroborated her statement.
The Left Front-Congress combine (Alliance) got 76 seats, with the Congress bagging 44, which means the Grand Old Party could reclaim its position as the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly.
The BJP, too, didn't manage any major breakthrough at three seats and 10 per cent vote share, down from its stellar performance of 17 per cent in the general elections of 2014.
It's this simple arithmetic of vote share that got the Left Front and the Congress together ahead of the elections. But, the Alliance ended up with only 37 per cent vote share. What underscores the failure of the Alliance is that its face, Surjya Kanta Mishra, has lost.
In the run-up to the results, there was speculation that the fight between TMC and the Alliance would be a close one; that came crashing on Thursday.
The Opposition, which started the campaign with the theme of industrialising Bengal, was handed a sting video by the Narada news portal, that featured top TMC MLAs and MPs taking cash for extending favours to a fictitious company, a fortnight before the polls; it was followed by an under-construction flyover collapsing in the heart of Kolkata, killing 24 people that brought to the fore the "syndicate raj".
Syndicate is an extortion racket run by unemployed youth primarily affiliated allegedly to the ruling party who use violence, or the threat of violence, to force inferior materials on developers and individuals at a premium.
It was perfect ammunition for the Opposition that changed tack from the theme of industrialisation and made corruption in TMC its main campaign theme. To say it didn't work would be putting it mildly.
Even in the urban and semi-urban areas (including Kolkata), it's a clean sweep for the TMC. What worked in its favour?
Roads, water, electricity were the focus areas for the TMC government. Around 5,213 km of roads were improved and renovated during 2011-2015 compared with 3,220 km during 2007-2011; the number of below poverty line (BPL) households electrified increased from 18.18 per cent as on March 31, 2011, to 90.71 per cent in January from 2016; the number of above poverty line (APL) households electrified increased from 52.36 per cent to 97.88 per cent during the same period.
But ask people what they loved most and most of them would list the freebies.
Of Bengal's 90 million population, 80 million are getting rice at Rs 2 a kg or even less; state subsidy support on foodgrain has increased almost 12 times from Rs 516.32 crore during 2010-2011 to Rs 6,000 crore.
The dole list is long.
About 10 million minority students were provided scholarship at Rs 1,921 crore; 97 per cent of the Muslim community has been registered under the OBC category; 20,380 clubs and NGOs were provided 'grants'; 3.3 million girl students have been enrolled under the Kanyasree scheme that cost Rs 1,900 crore; four million boys and girls have received bicycles; under the Yuvasree scheme, financial assistance of Rs 1,500 a month has been extended to 100,000 job seekers; 60,000 folk artists have been enrolled under a pension scheme; 21,000 cine and television artists have been covered under group medical insurance scheme and so forth.
It's an appease-all strategy that has reaped dividends.
The stage is now set for the next round of sops.