NEW DELHI, May 27: Campaigning for 29 by-elections to three Lok Sabha and nine Assembly seats spread over eight states besides the national Capital ended this evening.

Around five million voters will decide the electoral fortunes of 31 Lok Sabha and 55 Assembly candidates in Thursday's polling.

The three Parliamentary constituencies going to the polls are east Delhi, Aska in Orissa and Ernakulam in Kerala while the Assembly seats are Qila Raipur (Punjab), Khandwa and Bhojpur (Madhya Pradesh), Daspalla and Nawapara (Orissa), Shirdi (Maharashtra), Farrukhabad (Uttar Pradesh), Martur (Andhra Pradesh) and Molakalmuru (Karnataka).

The prestigious east Delhi Lok Sabha constituency lying vacant after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP B L Sharma `Prem' resigned from the seat in February is virtually witnessing a triangular contest between BJP nominee Lal Bihari Tiwari, Congress candidate A K Walia and Independent candidate H K L Bhagat.

Bhagat, former Delhi Pradesh Congress chief, filed his papers as an Independent candidate after he was denied a ticket by the Congress. The former Union minister who had won the seat four times on a Congress ticket is currently facing charges of inciting violence in a case relating to the 1984 Delhi riots.

BJP candidate Lal Bihari Tiwari, who is a minister in the Delhi Government, is supported by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) while Congress nominee A K Walia, a sitting MLA from the east Delhi constituency, is being backed by the Janata Dal (JD) and the Samajwadi Party (SP). In all, there are 19 candidates in the fray.

In the Aska Parliamentary constituency in Orissa, former chief minister Biju Patnaik's son, Naveen Patnaik, a debutant in politics, takes on seasoned politician and former Union minister Ram Chandra Rath of the Congress. There are two more candidates in the fray.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.