A relative improvement in the weather resulted in the voter turnout picking up in Bhowanipore and soothed the Trinamul Congress’s nerves on Thursday.

The turnout had touched 53.32 per cent by 5pm, with the likelihood of it climbing closer to the 61.79 per cent clocked in the April 26 election in the Assembly constituency from where chief minister Mamata Banerjee is contesting now.

Mobilisation on the ground by a battery of senior Trinamul leaders contributed significantly to the by-election turnout, especially from the slum and colony areas of the socio-economically diverse constituency.

“Victory for Mamata here is a foregone conclusion, but a drastically reduced turnout because of inclement weather was a real fear. That could’ve lowered her victory margin considerably,” said a Trinamul Rajya Sabha member in the evening.

Mamata contested from the seat after her cabinet colleague Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay vacated it for her in May. Agriculture minister Chattopadhyay had secured 73,505 votes – 57.71 per cent of the vote share – defeating the BJP’s Rudranil Ghosh, who got 44,786 votes or 35.16 per cent of the vote share. The constituency has over 2.06 lakh voters.

“The main challenge here was to ensure her margin was higher than the 28,719 secured by Chattopadhyay, despite this being a by-election in a very urban constituency,” the Trinamul MP said.

Since delimitation resurrected the constituency before the Assembly elections of 2011, Trinamul has remained undefeated there.

“We are looking to replicate the 2011 by-election performance by Mamata in Bhowanipore, when she won by a margin of 54,213 even when the turnout was just 44.73 per cent,” the MP added.

Trinamul had deployed some of Mamata’s most trusted lieutenants -– such as Subrata Bakshi, Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee and Madan Mitra – to steer the mobilisation on polling day.

Sources said these leaders ensured healthy turnouts from several densely populated slums in the constituency.

Mamata, sworn in as chief minister on May 5, has till November 5 to be elected to the 294-seat House her party swept. She had unsuccessfully contested from the Nandigram seat, losing by 1,956 votes to Trinamul turncoat Suvendu Adhikari, now in the BJP. Mamata has challenged the result in court.

In the Assembly election this summer, the BJP had fared well from only two wards in Bhowanipore -- 70 (Jadu Babu’s Bazaar) and 74 (Alipore).

“Today, the turnout was low from those two wards, which can only mean an even more favourable mandate in the chief minister’s favour,” said one of Trinamul’s ward-level coordinators deployed in Ward 70.

The BJP and its candidate Priyanka Tibrewal alleged several instances of malpractice. The party lodged some 13 complaints, around twice the number in the summer election.

“The rain gods failed us today, and the overall turnout was not as low as we would’ve liked,” said a BJP state unit functionary.