Shimla, May 8 (PTI) Four contestants in the fray for the Himachal Pradesh Assembly bypolls and the BSP's Mandi Lok Sabha candidate filed their nomination papers on Wednesday, officials of the state election department said here.

They said the total number of nominations filed so far stands at nine as four candidates filed their papers on Tuesday.

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On Wednesday, the BSP's Prakash Chand Bhardwaj (65) filed his papers from the Mandi Lok Sabha parliamentary constituency, Congress leader Anuradha (31) filed her papers for the Lahaul & Spiti Assembly bypoll and the party's Anil Kumar (53) entered the fray as her cover.

Manohar Lal (44) and Satish Kumar (36) filed their nominations as Independent candidates from the Gagret and the Dharamsha assembly constituencies respectively, a spokesperson of the election department said in a statement.

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No nominations were filed from the Kangra, Hamirpur and Shimla parliamentary constituencies or for the Kutlehar, Barsar and Sujanpur assembly constituencies, it said.

Chief Electoral Officer Maneesh Garg released the cycling T-shirts with a "message to Vote".

The state's election icon Jaspreet Paul, an avid cyclist and professional photographer from Mandi, has been assigned the task of spreading awareness and encouraging people to exercise their right to franchise.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)