Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee was forced to stay away from her scheduled final campaign push before the Bengal panchayat polls because of injuries sustained during a recent chopper mishap. But she tried to make up for it by addressing two back-to-back meetings on June 3 in the virtual mode – over Kolkata mayor and minister Firhad Hakim’s phone at Birbhum’s Dubrajpur and minister Aroop Biswas’s phone at Hooghly’s Goghat.

Both phones were on speaker mode so that the gathering could hear her clearly.

Mamata's repeated apologies for not being able to make it to those places in-person only reinforced her agony, which may not have beeen entirely physical given that she had to undergo microsurgery on her left knee.

Over and above her district administrative meetings, the Trinamul Supremo held at least seven political meetings in the districts in the past two months till the accident on June 27. During this time, she visited West Midnapore twice and Malda, Bankura, South 24 Parganas, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri districts once each. Of these, she joined Abhishek Banerjee on the dais at Trinamul-e Naba Jowar mass outreach campaign twice – first, in Malda and then, on the final day of campaign at Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas.

Compare these stats with those of her heir-apparent Abhishek Banerjee’s mass outreach attempts in the meantime: 51 days of Nobo Jowar travels crisscrossing the state and, following the campaign’s termination on June 18, another 15 road shows and public meetings. Aditionally, the party had kept posted 55 of its leaders across the 22 districts as poll managers, but mostly acting as liaison persons between the top leadership and the party grassroots, for two months.

Despite the campaign overdose and grassroots checks which the Trinamul Congress had planned to keep panchayat ambitions of local leaders backfiring on the party, Mamata’s plans to ultimately throw her hat into the ring led to a few raised eyebrows in the state’s political fraternity. And a significant section of them believe that her forced withdrawal from campaigns at the final hours may impact the poll outcome in certain corners which could unpleasantly surprise the party top brass.

The fact that the panchayat polls in Bengal have largely served as the weathervane of state politics over the past decade and half with an indirect, but crucial, impact on the general elections which follows within a year, the Trinamul supremo isn’t someone to take chances.

“Given that Mamata still managed to address rallies in virtual mode despite the pain she was enduring, I would say she did a lot,” said Sikha Mukherjee, senior journalist and political analyst. “It’s obvious that she wanted Abhishek to have the opportunity to lead the party in these local body polls. But she made the last part of the campaign personal, urging voters to vote for her, if not for the local leaders. The accident, while preventing her from reaching out to her voters in-person, also allowed her to project her commitment despite her indisposition,” she added.

BJP leader Swapan Dasgupta chipped in with a different perspective. “These polls are going to be chaotic and a bloody affair and their efficacy is likely to be called into question. I think Mamata didn’t want to be seen as promoting that in any way and hence she kept herself a step removed. The injury was fortuitous,” Dasgupta maintained.

“I also believe that she has undertaken a gradual process of handing over the party’s baton to her nephew and staying partially detached from these local body polls and pushing Abhishek to the limelight is the obvious way to do it,” the BJP leader said.

“Mamata, I believe, has an apprehension,” Mukherjee said, “that her support in some parts of the state is currently a bit dicey. Not that it’s likely to cost her the polls, but there could be a voters’ disapproval of her politics.”

“The cash-for-jobs scam has impacted many people. Although corruption has never been an issue in Indian politics, Bengal included, but this time there is a significant irritation among a section of people who paid money and still didn’t get the jobs. The basic ground rule of corruption as a transaction was violated. That may not have gone to the extent of loyalty for Mamata getting withdrawn, but there is an irritation at work with the party. That’s why she decided to go all out in the end but the injury stopped her,” Mukherjee opined.

“Mamata Banerjee is a charismatic leader. So her absence from campaigns would certainly matter to her party and to her voters. But staying away from a campaign is one thing and absence on account of an injury is quite another. Her followers will take that into account,” Mukherjee summed up.

Trinamul MP Santanu Sen, who’s among the leaders camping in the districts for the polls, feels Banerjee is always present in Trinamul meetings despite her physical absence. “The leaders on stage are only delivering the message of our leader to our people,” he said.

Sen, though, admits that these elections would be an “acid test” for the next generation of party leaders. “She has never been at the forefront of local elections. But her relative detachment on account of her injury has only increased the responsibility on our shoulders. I am confident that the party’s next generation will deliver,” he said.