Mayor Sanjay Chauhan and deputy mayor decide not to contest Shimla municipal corporation polls this year

SHIMLA: Shimla mayor Sanjay Chauhan and deputy mayor Tikender Singh Panwar have decided to not contest Shimla municipal corporation (SMC) elections, after their five year term ends in June. The CPI (M) leaders had earlier created history by winning both mayoral chairs in Shimla in 2012. While Chauhan will be contesting in Vidhan Sabha elections now, which will be conducted in December later this year, Panwar will be moving to Delhi to strengthen the party there.
Chauhan said when SMC elections were conducted directly in the year 2012, people chose them. But, in the fear of losing the mayoral seats again from CPI(M), first both the state government (Congress) and opposition (BJP) declared indirect SMC election, and then the government removed young voters from electoral rolls, who supported CPI(M), he added. “After we questioned the removal of voters, they were included back in the electoral rolls and were given back their right to vote but indirect elections still forms a major issue. I am hopeful that people will definitely vote for CPI(M) members as councillors after understanding the games being played by other parties,” he said.
Panwar expressing confidence of his party’s victory this time said CPI (M) representatives will fight from all 34 wards of Shimla and will win without any doubt. He added that when they entered SMC, its employees were not even paid their salaries on time and the budget allotted to SMC was nominal but now it has surplus budget to spend on the betterment of the town. “We are happy that even when we constituted only 12% with 88% opposition in SMC, we worked hard and constantly tried to make Shimla a resilient city,” he added.