A Smart City has no exact definition. Different countries have different meaning of smart cities. Within a country, different cities have different meaning of smart cities. The meaning depends upon the people who live in that city. Therefore the understanding of citizens participation is important. A Smart city is just an imagination in India right now. It is not a reality yet. Therefore Smart cities will have to be created through updating of previous or old cities. They are not new cities. Thus, the people of that city must participate in the re-creation of old cities into smart cities. In India there are some cities, which have been selected to become smart cities. In the state of Punjab there are two cities which are selected to become smart cities, Ludhiana and Jalandhar. For the re-creation of old cities, naturally there will be so many challenges to be faced. The purpose of this research is to explore the challenges of smart city creation through an understanding of citizens participation. The objectives of this research is to study the challenges faced during the re-creation of Jalandhar city into smart city and to study the citizen participation in the process of smart city creation with respect to Jalandhar city.