New Delhi: Ladakh is set for a cliffhanger as the Union Territory votes Monday for its first major election after the abrogation of Article 370 and its breaking away from Jammu & Kashmir in 2019.
What makes Ladakh a must watch is the ebbing fortunes of the two rival sides. Over the last one month, a down and dusted BJP marred by factionalism is united again. The INDIA bloc, which seemed comfortable at one point, has seen a rebellion amongst its ranks in Kargil. Now, an independent candidate from Kargil threatens to upset poll arithmetics of both sides.
The UT has been in the news over the Buddhist-majority Leh and the Muslim-dominated Kargil joining hands, protesting against the Modi government over four primary demands — statehood, constitutional safeguards under the Sixth Schedule, separate Lok Sabha seats for Leh and Kargil districts, and job reservation.
Now, as the Congress and the National Conference units of Kargil are once again up in arms, local political leaders are barely surprised at it.
Sajjad Kargilli, a member of Kargil Democratic Alliance who was runners up last election, told ThePrint, “main issues are our four-point agenda.” He believes the united candidate from the district, Mohammad Haneefa Jan, is getting some traction in Leh as well.
Kargilli believes that unlike 2014, this time challenges are new. “Earlier, we had a safeguard. We had small issues. Now, we have issues of existence and future.”
Asked if Independent candidate Jan will end up helping the BJP by splitting votes, Kargili, who is not associated with any party, said: “That is not the case. In Ladakh, when it comes to representation of Leh and Kargil, political parties take a backseat.”
“Election is fought based on local identity there,” he added.
Even leaders from Leh do not disagree on this point. A senior leader, who was once a Congress candidate, told ThePrint, “As per poll records, this is a fact. The MP election is always polarised. This time, I don’t see as much polarisation but the result seems to be pretty clear because where vote divides (candidates from) that (region) weakens. And where the vote consolidates, there the candidate wins. This time Kargil has only one Independent candidate. Whereas Leh has got two candidates — Congress and BJP. The Buddhist vote will divide, and the Muslim vote will consolidate.”
“Yes, Congress would have been much more comfortable had there been no candidate from Kargil. But it is not possible; there are always candidates from Kargil. This time, all have come together. When it comes to the Lok Sabha election, all come together from different parties,” he added.
He said the mass resignation of National Conference leaders from Kargil unit is merely a formality and once elections are over, “everyone will go back to their parties”. “This has been happening for a long time,” he added.
According to him, the Congress, despite better chances from Kargil, put its weight behind a candidate from Leh, considering its fortunes in the next hill council election — which is the next tier in Ladakh.
“The Congress might have lost its Buddhist vote. And Congress lost its council election last time. The leadership doesn’t want further erosion there. I don’t think they have fielded a candidate to win but they have fielded a candidate to keep their council vote intact,” he explained.
But Kargilli believes that once elections are over, after about a week or a month, both the Kargil and Leh leadership will get united again to continue their demands
Meanwhile, BJP is making a unique pitch for “safeguarding the people’s rights” in Ladakh.
“Whatever we commit here, it is very important for us. Whatever has to be done to safeguard the rights of people of Kargil, Leh has to be done by the BJP. If a Congressman or an Independent becomes an MP, they can only give speeches. It is very important to tell people to give votes to the person who can do work. If you vote and they cannot work, what’s the point of that?” Union minister Kiren Rijuju said last week.
“If the candidate from some other party comes, he will disrupt the process. It is important to elect Tashi Gyalson for the future of Ladakh,” he added.
How scenario unfolded
On the last day of withdrawal of candidates in May, National Conference’s Kargil unit announced a mass resignation over pressure to support Tsering Namgyal, who happens to be a Congress leader from Leh.
“The party high command was putting pressure on us to support the Congress party’s official candidate. They were telephoning me and I told them ‘never’. We made the sacrifice in the larger interest of Ladakh, especially Kargil,” NC’s Kargil unit Amar Ali Akhoon had said.
While resignation was a setback for the INDIA bloc, the announcement of a joint candidate by the Kargil leadership of the two parties is more damaging for the candidates from Leh. The NC draws strength from Kargil, while the Congress gets support in Buddhist-dominated Leh, apart from some influence in Kargil.
When the Lok Sabha seat sharing was announced in April, the NC got three seats in Kashmir and the Congress got two seats in Jammu and the sole seat in Ladakh. In last October Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council-Kargil election, the two parties together won 22 out of 26 seats, which some hailed as “first victory for INDIA bloc”.
Parallely, the BJP draws all of its strength from Buddhist-dominated Leh. While Kargil district has 51 percent of the population in Ladakh, 49 percent reside in Leh district. Out of Kargil’s 140,802 residents, 76.8 percent is Muslim. On the contrary, 66.4 percent of 133,487 residents in Leh are Budhhists.
The BJP has won the last two elections, primarily because of division of votes in Kargil. In 2019, BJP’s Jamyang Tsering managed only 34 percent vote and yet won the election, while Thupstan Chhewang came out victorious despite 26 percent votes in 2014.
When BJP replaced its incumbent MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, he rallied his supporters, expressing unhappiness about the decision, amidst speculations that he might as well run as an Independent. Later, he changed track to come out in support of Tashi Gyalson, saying that the BJP candidate would carry forward the journey towards a ‘Viksit Bharat, Viksit Ladakh’.
In contrast, rebellion started brewing in INDIA bloc’s house in Kargil. After the central leadership’s delay, the NC and Congress units of Kargil called a press conference to announce their joint candidate Jan, district president of NC, on 1 May.
Within hours, NC’s official X account wrote, “JKNC President Dr. Farooq Abdullah and VP Omar Abdullah extend their congratulations to JKNC District President Haji Hanifa Jan on his nomination as the joint candidate of JKNC and Congress for the Ladakh Parliamentary Lok Sabha seat.”
However, Congress’s Leh unit distanced itself from the move. A day later Tsering Namgyal filed his nomination as a joint NC-Congress candidate. It was only after the nomination was filed, later that day, the central leadership officially announced him as the candidate.
Jan went ahead to file his nomination as an Independent the next day, with NC and Congress district leaders by his side. Apart from him, two major leaders from Kargil — Sajjad Kargili and former chairman of hill council (Kargil) Feroz Ahmed Khan — also filed their nominations as Independents.
Later, Kargili and Khan withdrew their nominations. “For a long time, the representation has been from Leh. We want that after a long time, a representation should go from Kargil. In Kargil’s larger interest, we withdrew our candidature,” Kargili told ThePrint.
The Congress’s Kargil unit claimed that the central leadership promised that this time, it would be a candidate from Kargil and not Leh, unlike last two times. “In January 2024, we had a meeting with Kharge sahab and Rahul ji, along with the leadership of Leh and Kargil. It was agreed at the time that one term would go to the person from Leh and the other term to a person from Kargil. And this time they said, we will give it to Kargil,” Kargil Congress president Nasir Munshi said during the nomination of Jan.
Dynamics in 2019
Back in 2019, BJP’s Jamyang Tsering Namgyal got 41,315 votes, without postal ballots, according to the EC. The two independents, Kargili and Congress rebel Asgar Ali Karbalai, got 31,552 and 29,069 votes.
As the EC numbers show, in case of a united face from Kargil, a united Opposition candidate would have easily won more votes than the BJP candidate.
While Kargili and Karbalai secured 84 percent of all votes polled in Kargil, 93 percent of all votes in Leh district went to the Congress and BJP candidates. This shows that nearly nine in ten voters voted for candidates from their own districts.
The joint NC-Congress candidate Rigzin Spalbar got 20,447 votes, 93 per cent of which came from Leh and could not draw many votes from Kargil despite an alliance with the regional party.
The case in 2014, too, was not much different as the contest was more tight.
These developments have reminded many of what happened in 2009, leaving a few in the Congress circles with a headache. In 2009, the NC and the Congress declared Phuntsog Namgyal as its joint candidate.
That year too, the NC’s Kargil unit rebelled and the party’s provincial president Hassan Khan announced his candidature as an independent. He had previously been an MP on the NC ticket. He emerged victorious in the election, defeating Namgyal by mere 3,700 votes.
Within two days of winning the election, Khan was welcomed with open arms by the National Conference. “I am grateful to Khan sahib for unconditionally accepting the invitation of the National Conference and the Congress high command,” then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had said in a press conference.
According to reports, this upset the Congress and was seen as an “NC ploy” to win the seat. A day later, Khan had to “clarify” that he had not joined the National Conference.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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