Panchkula, April 25 -- With just a day to go before nominations for the Panchkula municipal corporation (MC) elections come to a close, the mayoral candidates of both Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress filed their papers on Friday amid great pomp and show. While Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini and former Vidhan Sabha Speaker Gian Chand Gupta accompanied BJP's Shyam Lal Bansal, Congress' Sudha Bhardwaj was backed by Haryana Congress president Rao Narender Singh, MPs Randeep Singh Surjewala and Kumari Selja and MLA Chander Mohan. The deadline for filing of nominations is Saturday, 3pm. Though the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) - fighting its first municipal elections in Panchkula - and the Indian National Lok Dal Party (INLD) have also thrown their hat in the ring, the polls are largely being seen as a two-cornered contest between the BJP and the Congress, with the former fighting anti-incumbency and the latter looking to make a comeback after its defeat in the 2020 polls. Alleging that corruption was rampant in the Panchkula MC under the BJP, Congress MP Surjewala asked why the saffron party had denied tickets to its outgoing mayor Kulbhushan Goyal and nearly 80% of its corporators. "Sudha Bhardwaj is a clean and deserving candidate," said Surjewala, a view that was echoed by the party's Haryana unit president, Rao Narender Singh. Haryana CM Saini, meanwhile, urged voters to support party candidate Bansal, stating that a "triple-engine" government is what Panchkula needs for development. Bansal said he has seen Panchkula grow over the years and is well-acquainted with every part of the city, and thus a perfect candidate to represent its people. Several ward candidates of the BJP, Congress and a few Independents also filed their nominations amid a show of strength by their supporters outside the mini-secretariat. From the Indian National Lok Dal, only the Ward 10 candidate filed his papers while the rest will do so on Saturday. The others, along with mayoral candidate Manoj Aggarwal, will file their nominations on Saturday in the presence of party president Abhay Chautala. AAP's mayor face, Rajesh Kumar, 45, a Ramgarh-based businessman and social worker, along with the ward candidates, will also file his papers on the last day....