“ Khela hobe ” — the game will be played — once rang out as a slogan of defiance. In the quiet after an electoral defeat, it begins to sound like something else: A reminder that for women, the game has never been played on equal terms. This election cycle offered a striking visual contrast. Across four major states, leadership contests were largely defined by men. In Assam, Tamil Nadu , and Kerala, the faces of power remained overwhelmingly male. West Bengal stood apart not only because of its political contest but also because it placed a woman, Mamata Banerjee, at the very centre of it. That difference matters because when a woman is not just present but central to power, the terms of evaluation shift. A day after a political loss, the instinct is to reduce a leader to numbers. Seats won, seats lost, margins that shifted. The harder task is to ask what a political life reveals about the system it inhabits.…