TOTTENHAM Conservatives have unveiled their candidate to fight for the late Bernie Grant's constituency seat.

It has emerged that former Barnet councillor Jane Ellison will contest the vacancy following the sudden passing of the veteran Labour MP, who died of a heart attack on April 8.

A by-election has yet to be officially called but it is believed it will fall in June or July.

The seat was popular among Tory hopefuls with a total of 23 applications being submitted, despite the fact that Mr Grant returned a majority of 20,000 at the last general election.

Ms Ellison became the prospective parliamentary candidate on Saturday at a meeting of the local Conservative Association.

She lost her council seat in 1994 and three years later was ousted from Hendon Conservative Association as different factions fought for its control ? a battle that resulted in the association being expelled from the national party.

Ron Aitken, chairman of the Tottenham Conservative constituency association, said: 'I'm sure Jane will fight a very good campaign and obviously her experience in Barnet went in her favour.

'Jane will fight to win the seat and we're very confident we will fight a good campaign.

'We're not worried about the Liberal Democrats.

'They have moved out to the leafy suburbs.

'We shall fight a very clean campaign on the issues and it will be interesting to see if Labour sticks to that.'

In 1987, the Tories came within 5,000 votes of winning the seat, he added.

Meanwhile, Mr Grant's widow Sharon is still mulling over the possibility of contesting her late husband's seat as the Labour candidate.

The Independent understands she is still talking to Tottenham residents in a bid to gauge public opinion before making a final decision.