India, March 15 -- Elections to West Bengal's 294 assembly seats will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29, and the results will be declared on May 4, the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on Sunday.

With the announcement, the model code of conduct, or a set of guidelines for political parties and candidates for free and fair elections, comes into force in the state until the end of the poll process.

In the first phase, polls will be held in all eight north Bengal districts and some districts on the western part of south Bengal bordering Jharkhand. These are the regions where BJP performed well in the 2019 Lok Sabha and the 2021 assembly polls. In fact, it secured more seats than TMC in the eight north Bengal distri...