India, Dec. 30 -- The political temperature in West Bengal rose sharply on Tuesday as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Union home minister Amit Shah traded barbs, setting the tone for an intensifying battle ahead of next year's assembly elections.

Shah, who is on a three-day visit to the state to kickstart the BJP's poll campaign, accused Banerjee of presiding over an atmosphere of "fear, corruption and misgovernance", while alleging that her government was facilitating the infiltration of Bangladeshis, a process he claimed had "dangerously altered" West Bengal's demography over the past few years.

"Due to corruption under the Mamata Banerjee-led government in the state, development in West Bengal has stopped. All beneficial schemes s...