Used to pacing up and down the dais armed with a microphone, she sat in a wheelchair and with a plastered foot — an extraordinary sight in a state grown familiar to a boundless mix of movement and sound that explodes when Mamata Banerjee takes centre stage.

Shorn of mobility, the voice of the 66-year-old lacked the usual thunder and the speech was over in barely 10 minutes.

But the message from Mamata at the Sunday afternoon event — her first public meeting since her injury in Nandigram on Wednesday — was loud and clear: “Don’t forget an injured tigress is more dangerous than a dead one.”

The warning to her opponents capped the speech at the Hazra crossing in the city, which began with another reminder: “I have faced attacks several times in my life but I have never bowed my head.”

Mamata had earlier made an appearance to lead a party march from the Gandhi statue at the Maidan to the Hazra crossing, covering the 5km in her wheelchair across 80 minutes in the afternoon sun.

The reaction of the people along the route and the concerns expressed about her health suggested her injury had assumed a great deal of political significance in poll-bound Bengal.

While Trinamul is hoping the sight of Mamata in a wheelchair will galvanise voters, the BJP is still trying to gauge the public response to her injury after some of its leaders had initially suggested it had been stage-managed.

The BJP’s concerns were on full display on Sunday when the party approached the Election Commission demanding full disclosure of Mamata’s injury and the treatment she had received at SSKM Hospital, where she spent two days.

“Have faith in me,” the chief minister said in her brief speech. “Sitting in this wheelchair, and with this broken foot, I shall travel across Bengal. And khela hobe (the game is on).”

Her party colleagues and supporters broke into euphoric chants of what has become Trinamul’s main poll slogan: “Bangla nijer meyekei chay (Bengal wants it own daughter, none else).”

The march that preceded the meeting was held to mark Nandigram Dibas, the anniversary of the killing of 14 people in police firing in 2007, an incident key to Mamata’s rise to power four years later.

Most in her party had expected Mamata to turn up directly at the Hazra crossing after the march, which was to be led by Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee. But to everyone’s surprise, the chief minister’s convoy pulled up near the Park Street crossing around 1.50pm.

The wheelchair-bound chief minister was taken through Mayo Road to the statue, where she paid tribute to the Mahatma. Then the march to Hazra began with Mamata at its head.

Her security guards and aides such as Aroop Biswas took turns pushing her wheelchair along Jawaharlal Nehru Road under a blazing sun.

Mamata seemed in some discomfort: she wiped her face with her sari and occasionally used her palm to shield her eyes from the sun.

Large crowds had gathered along the route. The collective sighs that went up at the sight of her plastered leg and the constant enquiries on how she was feeling suggested her injury had become a hot topic.

At Hazra, Biswas pushed the wheelchair up a ramp to the stage. Without wasting time, Mamata took the microphone and began her address, thanking everyone for their concern about her injury.

“When someone asked, ‘How is your pain?’ my reply was the pain will persist as the doctors had suggested 15 days’ bed rest. But if I rest in bed, who will reach out to Bengal’s people?” she asked.

Mamata is expected to campaign in Purulia on Monday. “I will have to be out on the streets, else the conspirators will have been successful,” she said.

At her rallies, the chief minister is expected to build around her injury the theme of a conspiracy by adversaries to hurt Bengal and democracy, and paint herself as the protector of the ordinary people.

“I’m in pain, but more than the physical pain it’s the pain in the heart that hurts,” Mamata said. “When democracy is trampled on, it hurts too much. Autocrats are inflicting pain on democracy; we have the responsibility to protect Bengal’s common people from that.”

She suggested the battle for Bengal was a contest between good and evil. “Let’s pray that the evil forces are defeated and their conspiracy to capture Bengal is thwarted,” Mamata said.

Towards the end of the speech came the warning for her opponents: “Nihoto bagher theke ahoto bagh onek beshi bhoyonkor.”