With her various overtures and right noises at the right time, Mamata is once again trying to reshape her image from being a regional leader to one with national appeal and acceptability.
After all, the charge of building a Federal Front may also bring to the fore Mamata's chances to become prime minister in 2019.
A revealing excerpt from Shutapa Paul's Didi: The Untold Mamata Banerjee. May is a time of summer lull in Bengal. This year (2018) the calm is distinctive. Just a few weeks ago, the hectic activity surrounding the panchayat polls had come to an end. Mamata and her party registered yet another thumping victory winning 19,394 gram panchayat seats. But the national attention was distracted by two factors -- reports of unprecedented political violence in the state especially on polling day and the BJP emerging as the runner-up with 5,759 seats. Of the 48,650 seats in 3358 gram panchayats, 16,814 seats were left uncontested. Of the 9,217 seats in 341 panchayat samitis, 3,059 did not see an election fight. In the twenty zilla parishads, 203 of the 825 seats were uncontested. The Opposition parties moved court alleging that their candidates were not able to file nominations.Eventually, the TMC won 34 per cent uncontested seats even before a single vote was cast.