BJP councillors walkout from SMC House over jaundice outbreak

BJP councillors led by local MLA, Suresh Bharadwaj today staged walk out from general house meeting of Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) over the jaundice outbreak in Shimla.
The BJP members were protesting over omission of reference to jaundice outbreak in the speech by Mayor Sanjay Chauhan, while presenting the Budget proposals but the Deputy Mayor Tikender Panwar insisted that the SMC was only the distributing agency and the water was being pumped and supplied by Irrigation and PUBLIC health Department.
"The Mayor did not talk about outbreak of jaundice at all in his speech, despite the fact that it was the most important issue affecting the life of people in Shimla.

So, the BJP councilors protested, raised slogans, trooped into the Well and later staged a walk out," Suresh Bhardwaj, who is member of MC house being local MLA, told media men later.
He said the water is supplied to the local residents by Shimla MC and it can not absolve itself of the failure of having supplied contaminated water to the people.
"Since the local people pay water charges to the MC, it is accountable to provide clean and safe drinking water and the consumers are not concerned that which agency is supplying water to them," he asserted.

However, the Deputy Mayor, Tikender Singh Panwar strongly condemned the behaviour of BJP councillors led by Bhardwaj and said that instead of discussing Budget proposals and making amendments in the interest of people, they boycotted the House just on the pretext of spread jaundice outbreak.

The Deputy Mayor said it was a known fact thatShimla Municipal Corporation's role has been widely appreciated for its adept functioning in meeting this menace and working for its final eradication.
"The role of Municipal Corporation is just as distributing agency and it is not responsible for contaminatingwater with Hepatitis," the Deputy Mayor said.
They said the behaviour of the BJP councilors showed that they were merely interested in politics of jaundice and not for its eradication.
"There was a healthy debate in which councillors from Congress and CPI (M) participated and made valuable contribution to the budget proposals. Finally the budget was unanimously passed," Panwar said.