Mamata Banerjee on Monday issued a public appeal to the electorate in the six Assembly constituencies that will have by-elections on Wednesday, asking them to vote in favour of her party, because it stands by people through the year.

“I hereby ask all the people in those six constituencies that the Bengal government and Ma-Mati-Manush (Trinamool Congress slogan meaning Mother-Soil-People) are with them all 365 days,” said the chief minister on her way to Darjeeling.

“So please do vote for Trinamool Congress candidates for more work, more rapid development work in your areas,” added Mamata, who gave the campaign for the six seats a miss in the middle of the autumnal festive spell.

Expressing indebtedness and gratitude for the stellar performance of her party in the general election this summer – it won 29 of the 42 Bengal seats, up from 22 in 2019 – she named the six by-poll candidates for Sitai, Madarihat, Naihati, Haroa, Taldangra, and Medinipur, hoped they would taste victory too.

Trinamool had won all but Madarihat, of the six, in 2021. In the hills, Mamata appealed to the people to ensure that her party wasn’t denied victory in the Madarihat seat this time.

Ten of the 294 seats of the Assembly needed by-polls by the end of this summer. Vacancies in all but Maniktala were created by MLAs becoming candidates for the Lok Sabha elections.

Political watchers expect the by-polls to serve as an indicator of the ruling Trinamool’s current standing in Bengal amid the unprecedented political challenge from the undying protests in the wake of the RG Kar tragedy.

The results for the six seats will be declared on November 23.

Immediately after Durga Puja, as leaders poured in at her 30B Harish Chatterjee Street residence in Kalighat for a post-Vijaya Dashami gathering, Mamata had instructed them to plunge headlong into campaign mode, essentially to recover ground lost to the RG Kar fallout since mid-August.

“The results should eliminate all doubt, and silence the naysayers hoping that there would be a drastic decline in our electoral fortunes because of the political misuse of the RG tragedy,” said a leader.

“Anything less than five should be deemed a major upset, and that will not happen,” he added.

In the July 10 by-polls to Bagda, Maniktala, Raiganj, and Ranaghat Dakshin, Trinamool had won all four.

But a lot is believed to have taken place politically in Bengal since August 9, when the rape-and-murder at RG Kar came to light, followed by countless allegations against the ruling dispensation of complicity and of attempted cover-up.

“By-elections are anyway expected to go in favour of the ruling party. But these elections would be conducted by the ECI, with full-fledged deployment of central forces, and are expected to be as fair and free as possible,” said a Trinamool MP.