Contrary to the expectation that the the NC and the Congress will field a joint candidate against the BJP in Ladakh, the region is now witnessing a triangular contest after the local Kargil leaders from the two parties decided to support Haji Haneefa Jan who contesting as an Independent candidate.
The development has upset the plan of the NC and Congress to take on the BJP unitedly. With Sajjad Kargil and Kacho Mohammad Feroz opting out of the contest, only three candidates are now left in the race for the Ladakh Lok Sabha seat, including Tashi Gyalson (BJP), Tsering Namgyal (Congress) and Jan.
Gyalson and Namgyal are from the Buddhist-dominated Leh district, while Jan belongs to the Muslim- majority Kargil district. The poll for the lone Lok Sabha seat will be held in the fifth phase on May 20.
Last week, the NC leaders from Kargil submitted en masse resignations in protest against the party’s pressure on them to support the Congress candidate instead of Jan.
Qamar Ali Akhoon, the NC Additional Secretary (Ladakh) and former minister in the erstwhile J&K state government, in a letter to NC President Farooq Abdullah, conveyed the Kargil unit’s decision to resign en masse from the party's primary membership.
The resignations came after the NC leadership directed its Ladakh unit, especially in Kargil, to support the Congress candidate. As per the seat-sharing agreement, the NC and the Congress shared three Parliamentary seats in J&K and Ladakh. The Ladakh seat had gone to the Congress as per the agreement.
However, the NC Kargil unit revolted against the party decision and fielded its district president Jan as an Independent candidate with the backing of the Congress district unit. Several social and religious organisations of Kargil are also backing Jan.
“The NC high command was pressuring us to extend support to Tsering Namgayal, the official Congress candidate from Ladakh, but it was against the decision taken by Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), which has put up Haji Hanifa Jan as its candidate,” Akhoon said. The KDA is a coalition of political and religious bodies of Kargil that has joined forces with the Leh Apex Body, which represents religious and political parties of Leh backed by the influential Ladakh Buddhists Association (LBA), for statehood and Sixth Schedule for Ladakh.
He said they have decided to resign from the basic membership of NC in the larger interest of Ladakh, especially the Kargil district. He said Jan is the choice of KDA but the party's top brass was pressuring them to support the Congress party’s official candidate. “They called me and I told them ‘never.’ We made the sacrifice in the larger interest of Ladakh, especially Kargil,” he said. He said Jan is a unanimous candidate of all political, social, and religious groups of Kargil, and “we will do whatever is needed for his win.”
Jan had already submitted his resignation from the NC and “we are resigning from the basic membership of the party and disassociating with it,” he said.
In his letter to Abdullah, Akhoon said Jan is supported by political and religious institutions in Kargil. “The party high command is pressuring us (both telephonically as well on social media) to support the official candidate of INC (Congress) from Ladakh, which is unacceptable to us, including J&K NC and INC Unit Kargil,” the letter read. Akhoon said this letter may be considered a mass resignation of all party functionaries from the primary membership of the J&K National Conference.
The BJP, which won the Ladakh Lok Sabha constituency in 2019, is facing an angry electorate due to its refusal to grant Sixth Schedule status to Ladakh. The Centre has agreed to apply all provisions of the Sixth Schedule to Ladakh but refused to grant the region Sixth Schedule status or statehood. Ladakh was declared a Union Territory following the abrogation of Article 370 and the separation of Ladakh from Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019.
The BJP also faced a crisis after its incumbent MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal from the region decided to contest as an Independent following the party’s decision not to field him. Gaylson, who is the chairperson of Leh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), is now contesting for BJP. Namgyal agreed to back Gaylson after persuasion by senior BJP leaders who flew to Leh.
A split in the votes among Buddhists, who form the majority in Leh, could benefit Jan, who has the backing of the people in Kargil. The Congress has submitted its 38-member list of star campaigners for the Ladakh Lok Sabha seat to the Election Commission of India and Chief Electoral Officer Ladakh, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, K.C. Venugopal, Ambika Soni and Sachin Pilot.
