Two prominent non resident Indians, Virendra Sharma of the ruling Labour Party and businessman Tony Lit of the Conservatives are locked in a battle royal for Thursday's prestigious Parliamentary byelection from Asian-dominated Ealing Southall constituency.

The byelection, which will be the first popularity test for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is being held due to the death of 82-year-old Labour Member of Parliament Piara Singh Khabra.

Singh had won the seat in the 2005 general election with an 11,440 majority. Conservative candidate Mark Nicholson had finished third with 10,147 votes. Nigel Bakhai of Liberal Democrats, who had come second with 11,497 votes then, is trying his luck once again this time.

Conservative party leader David Cameron who was instrumental in fielding 34-year-old Tony Lit, who had joined the party barely a few days ago as the party's nominee, now faces flak after reports that Lit had attended a Labour fund-raising event last month, donating 4,800 pounds and posed for photographs with the then prime minister Tony Blair [Images].

The byelection, along with that of Sedgefield, vacated by Tony Blair, comes in the wake of a surge in the popularity of the Labour Party.

According to ICM poll for The Sunday Telegraph, Labour hit the vital 40 per cent mark while Tories were on 33 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on 19.

In a separate ICM poll for the News of the World, Labour was on 35 per cent, with the Tories trailing on 28 per cent.

About 53 per cent found that Labour under Brown were best equipped to run the country, while only 27 per cent opted for Cameron's Tories.

The byelection has also seen high profile campaigning by NRI industrialist Lord Swaraj Paul [Images] and NRI Labour MP from Leicester East Keith Vaz.

"I am absolutely confident we will win the seat. People are going to judge on the basis of the performance of the party. There is no other party which has done so much for the minority community than the Labour party so far," Lord Paul told PTI on Tuesday.

The 60-year-old, Virendra Sharma, who works in care services, expressed hope that people would reward him for his track record.

"This has been a Labour seat in the past and generally we have very good response in door-to-door campaigns because of my track record as a councillor for 25 years and my community work for the last 35 years. People do recognise it and I am confident that they will reward me with their vote on Thursday," Sharma told PTI.

Nobody could match the 10 years' record of the Labour government, Sharma, son of a veteran Punjabi politician, said.

He also feels that the defection of five Labour councillors to Conservatives would not make much of a difference.

Lit, who joined the Conservative party only a few days before being unveiled as its candidate, tried to brush aside the controversy over his participation at the Labour fund-raising party.

"As a businessman I did indeed attend this event for the Asian business community. But like many British-Asians I feel the Labour government does not have the answers to the challenges that currently face the country," he said.

Stephen Pound, the Labour MP for Ealing North, disagrees. Pound sat beside Lit at the dinner last month -- at which Sunrise Radio, of which Lit was then the managing director, paid 4,800 pounds for a table -- and said it was quite clearly a Labour event. 

While the disclosures have embarrassed and infuriated Cameron's team in equal measure, the party responded bullishly by insisting that Lit was focusing on the real issues in the constituency -- drugs, crime and jobs -- rather than getting excited about 'tittle-tattle'.

Joan Ryan, the Labour Party vice-chairman who is running the byelection campaign, said: "David Cameron's personal intervention to overrule local Tories and appointed a candidate has totally backfired."

Lord Rennard, the Liberal Democrat chief executive, said the disclosure about Lit was a big blow to the Tory campaign.

"One has to wonder just what questions were asked before the Conservatives invited Lit to become 'David
Cameron's Conservative candidate'," he said.

Some observers feel that with 10 candidates, Internet dirty tricks and a spate of defections and counter-defections, the Ealing Southall byelection is in danger of descending into a comedy.

Meanwhile, the Tory deputy council leader defected to the Lib Dems when Lit was selected.

Another councilor called Lit a "controversial and high-risk choice."

Then a curious message appeared on a Lib Dem YouTube page, admitting: "Realistically we're not going to win. The Tories have stolen a march on us."

Lib Dems point out it was posted from the account of Tory MP Grant Shapps, one of those running the Southall campaign.

The Conservatives insist someone hacked into his account to discredit him.

Tony Lit's father Avtar Lit who founded Sunrise Radio, contested as an independent in the constituency in 2001 and notched up 6,000 votes, although the radio authority fined Sunrise 10,000 pounds for airing a political interview with him during the election.