Trouble brewed up in Ladakh which just completed two years as the Union Territory with Leh Apex Body (LAB) and Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), two conglomerates representing various political, social, religious, student organizations etc, today announcing agitation in the entire UT with a bandh call on December 6 in support of granting Statehood, Constitutional safeguards, two Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha seats and filling up of 10,000 to 12,000 vacancies to overcome unemployment.
A decision to launch agitation in the entire UT was taken after over three hours long meeting of the LAB and KDA hosted by Kargil district and attended by nearly two dozen representatives of various bodies, who are part of the two Associations representing Leh and Kargil districts. The decision was announced at a joint press conference addressed among others by LAB chairman Thupstan Chhewang, a former two-time Lok Sabha member from Ladakh and Haji Asgar Ali Karbalaie, co-Chairman KDA, a former MLA from Kargil Assembly constituency.
A violent agitation took place in Leh lasting several months in 1989 in which some people were martyred in support of Union Territory status to Ladakh. However, Leh was later given Autonomous Hill Development Council followed by Kargil. It was on August 5, 2019 that Narendra Modi Government while bifurcating Jammu and Kashmir granted UT status to Ladakh.
The LAB and KDA leaders announced that the agitation will start with a bandh call on December 6 in the entire Union Territory of Ladakh in support of their demands.
“After the bandh, we will take agitation to block and tehsil levels by mobilizing public opinion and telling them that it is in the interest of Ladakh,” Chhewang and Karbalaie said.
Significantly, Karbalaie announced that the Kargil Buddhist Association (KBA) president today also joined the KDA and extended support to the demands raised by the two bodies collectively. Chhewang heads the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) and is leading the agitation among others.
Demands raised today by the LAB and KDA leaders include grant of Statehood to Ladakh, Constitutional safeguards to protect land, identity and culture of the people, increasing Lok Sabha seats from one to two (Leh and Kargil as separate LS constituencies), one Rajya Sabha seat and filling up of 10,000 to 12,000 vacancies which have piled up in Ladakh.
Karbalaie, however, charged the BJP with trying to divide Ladakhis, LAB and KDA but said it won’t succeed.
BJP Ladakh UT president and Lok Sabha MP Jamyang Tsering Namgayal was not available for comments on the agitational programme given by the two bodies of Ladakh. He was approached on telephone but the person who responded to the call said Namgayal is busy with a programme at Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and will react to latest developments in Ladakh later.
Charging the Central Government with adopting “delaying tactics”, the LAB and KDA leaders said Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai during talks with them on August 29 in Leh had assured constitution of a high-level committee shortly for further dialogue but even after passage of nearly two and half months not even the Panel has been set up so far what to say of initiation of dialogue.
“This shows the Centre too is adopting delaying tactics,” they said.
The LAB and KDA leaders clarified that the issues raised by them were not that of LAB or KDA alone but they pertained to the people of Ladakh and will be pursued vigorously.
While the people of Leh had welcomed the fulfilment of their long pending demand of the UT status and later formed the Apex Body in support of the demand for implementation of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution to safeguard their culture and identity, the KDA was not in the favour of the UT status and raised the demand of full Statehood to Ladakh.
However, on August 2, the ideologically different representatives of Kargil and Leh districts joined hands to seek full-fledged Statehood along with Constitutional safeguards for the region — some eight months after their historic meeting last year.
“The entire Ladakh region is united in support of our jointly chalked out four-point agenda… the Government of India has not shown seriousness to address the desire and demands of the people of Ladakh, prompting us to review our strategy and go for mass agitation,” Karbalaie said.
Karbalaie said though full Statehood to the region remains the top on the agenda of both the bodies, the meeting decided to oppose any move by the UT administration to fill up nearly 12,000 jobs in various Government departments by promotion quota.
“We will strongly oppose any such move or any attempt to outsource jobs to daily wagers. It will be a great injustice to the educated unemployed youth,” he said, urging the UT administration to show seriousness and fill up the vacancies without any further delay.
“The BJP is the only party which is outside the KDA and the Apex body. We are hopeful that the local leadership will see reason and become part of the joint alliance in near future,” he said.
Chhewang said, “We have no personal interests and our struggle is for the people of Ladakh and for our coming generations.”
“We will go from village to village and mobilise the public to defeat the designs of those working against the interests of the people,” he said.
It may be mentioned here that the LAB and KDA had given call for bandh on August 29 during three days visit of Nityanand Rai to Leh as he hadn’t extended an invitation to the two bodies for talks and instead invited many other organizations for interaction. However, Union Home Minister Amit Shah rang up Thupstan Chhewang that night and assured that both the bodies will be called for talks by Rai. The dialogue was held the next day with two bodies.
However, since August 29 talks, there has been no further meeting between the Central Government and the Ladakh bodies.