New Delhi, April 22 -- The high-octane campaigning for the first phase of the West Bengal assembly election ended on 20 April. All political parties gave a strong push to their campaign on the last day for 152 seats, where voters will exercise their franchise in the first phase of the West Bengal assembly election on Thursday.

The polling will determine the electoral fate of 1,478 candidates. The poll battle saw sharp exchanges in the largely considered bipolar contest between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Congress and CPI-M, who had allied in the last assembly polls, are fighting separately.

In the high-pitched campaign, the BJP repeatedly raised the issues of infiltrators, law and order,...