From just one seat in Lok Sabha poll five years ago, when many had written her political obituary, to the portals of power in Delhi, the wheel has turned full circle for Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, the stormy petrel of West Bengal politics.

It has not been an easy journey though for the 54-year old former teacher ever since she parted ways with Congress in 1998 and floated Trinamool Congress.

Her big moment in electoral politics came when she became a giant killer in 1984 by defeating veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Somnath Chatterjee in Lok Sabha elections in Jadavpore constituency.

She was subsequently elected to the Lok Sabha in 1998, and in 1991, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2004 from Kolkata South.

Mamata's first tryst with the corridors of power came in 1991 when she became union minister of state for Human Resources Development, Youth Affairs and Sports, and Women and Child Development in P V Narasimha Rao government.

During the National Democratic Alliance rule under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Mamata was Railway Minister in 1999 and for Coal and Mines in 2004. She was also a union minister without portfolio for a brief period in 2003-4.

Mamata broke away from Congress in 1998 to form Trinamool Congress and two years later allied with BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. However, in early 2001, she quit as Railway Minister and NDA in early 2001 in the wake of Tehelka expose into defence deals to ally with Congress for assembly elections in West Bengal but she could make no headway against the Marxists.

Mamata had to eat a humble pie and return to NDA and Vajpayee cabinet in January 2004 to become Coal and Mines minister till the 2004 election. Ironically, the then NDA convenor and Defence Minister George Fernandes, whom she had targetted in 2001 over the Tehelka expose, helped her return to the alliance and later to the ministry.

A relentless fighter against CPM, Mamata never gave up and bided her time to bounce back. Her opportunity came when Nandigram and Singur exploded on the national scene.  Despite her stint as a minister, Mamata has come to be known more as a politician of street protests busy in rabble rousing.

Nandigram made Mamata politically wiser as a large number of the affected farmers were Muslims and she began distancing herself from BJP before dump it altogether a few months later.

This paid off in 2007 panchayat elections. She then allied with Congress in the run up to Lok Sabha polls to avert a split in anti-Left votes. It made a formidable force against the state's ruling Left Front.

That she played her card well was proved by the red flag disappearing in eight of the 19 districts where the CPI-M failed to win a single seat in the parliamentary elections.