After two hours of debating on the NHS, immigration and the economy, no clear winner emerged from the televised showdown between seven of Britain's party leaders.
The first poll for YouGov gave the win to the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon, with UKIP leader Nigel Farage second.
A ComRes poll for ITV had Ed Miliband, David Cameron and Mr Farage level-pegging on 21% and an ICM/Guardian poll had the Labour leader in top spot with a 1% lead over Mr Cameron. Survation put both leaders on 25%.
The high-stakes debate was the only chance for the two men who could become prime minister on 7 May to challenge each other face to face before the election.
But the inconclusive result and the strong performance by the outsiders pointed to another coalition for Britain.
There were a number of significant clashes, not least between Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron who exchanged angry words on coalition differences over the past five years, with Mr Clegg savaging the Prime Minister on education cuts.
The Tory leader accused his Lib Dem counterpart of taking a "pick and mix" attitude to the coalition and told him: "We sat in the Cabinet Room together, we took decisions together."
But, ultimately, both of them appealed to voters in their closing arguments to let them "finish the job".
Another heated encounter saw Mr Clegg demanding an apology from Mr Miliband for "crashing the economy" after the Labour leader criticised his U-turn on tuition fees.
Mr Clegg said: "This is the man who was part of the government who said no boom and bust in the economy and crashed our economy, jeopardising the future generations and life chances of millions of people.
"I have prioritised, taken responsibility for the mistakes I made. Why doesn't Ed Miliband apologise for crashing the economy? You got it wrong on banking regulation."
Mr Farage emerged as the "Marmite figure" of the contest with the highest number of people thinking he performed both best and worst.
His remark that 60% of the 7,000 people diagnosed with HIV were "not British nationals" and that they were taking a toll on the NHS drew the most comments on Twitter.
They also drew angry responses from Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood and Ms Sturgeon.
Ms Wood told the UKIP leader: "This kind of scaremongering rhetoric is dangerous. It divides communities and it creates stigma to people who are ill. I think you should be ashamed of yourself."
And Ms Sturgeon added: "When someone is diagnosed with a dreadful illness, my instinct is to view them as a human being - not consider what country they come from."
Ms Sturgeon's success is likely to be claimed as a body blow for Mr Miliband in Scotland where Labour is predicted to be virtually wiped out by her nationalist party.
She challenged Mr Miliband on a number of points, taking him to task for signing up to the £30bn of austerity cuts proposed by the coalition.
Ms Wood stuck the knife in by telling Mr Miliband that the biggest threat the NHS faced in Wales was cuts and Labour.
However, Ms Sturgeon said she supported Mr Miliband's plan to increase the top rate of tax - although she would not agree on continued investment in Britain's nuclear deterrent.
The SNP leader teamed up with Ms Wood on a number of occasions. Both demanded if there was a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union it should be held separately in each of the four countries.
There was little deviation from the script from any party, the only unexpected intervention was a heckler who asked how many homeless people on the streets were once in the Armed Forces. She was eventually removed from the audience.
There was tough talk on immigration from all three main parties, with Mr Miliband promising no immigrants would get benefits before two years, and Mr Cameron promising four. Mr Farage said as long as Britain was a member of the EU immigration could not be controlled.
The UKIP leader attempted to set himself apart from the other leaders consistently describing them as "all the same" and in his closing speech told voters they didn't understand "ordinary people" and his party was the only one to offer "plain spoken patriotism".
However, as the debates closed it was the smaller parties that promised to offer an alternative - and the coalition parties offered to "finish the job".
In the end Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband finished the debate much as they started: 'it's a choice between the two of us'.
And the polls simply proved that, come 7 May, it will indeed be the closest of close contests.
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