Srinagar: The ongoing crisis for the INDIA bloc in Ladakh is a bitter reminder of the political faultlines dividing the arid desert region where the Buddhists and Muslims are putting up a united fight against the Union government to seek constitutional safeguards after it was turned into a Union territory.
National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah, who stepped in to defuse the crisis on Monday (May 6), ended up making the matter all the worse with the party’s Kargil unit announcing mass resignation in support of the NC’s Kargil district president, Haji Hanifa Jan, who is fighting the Lok Sabha election as an independent candidate.
Defying the high command, the Congress’s Kargil unit has also thrown its weight behind Hanifa, which has complicated the situation for the NC-Congress alliance that was hoping to make big electoral gains out of the anger in Ladakh against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government.
Earlier, Abdullah had directed the Kargil unit to support T. Namgyal, the INDIA bloc candidate, in the election which is set to be held on May 20. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the NC said that any “failure to follow this directive will be seen as a serious breach of party discipline.”
Hours after Abdullah’s remarks, the party’s additional general secretary in Ladakh, Qamar Ali Akhoon, announced the mass resignation of the party’s Kargil unit. In a letter to Abdullah, the former J&K minister accused the party of forcing the unit to “act against the interest of the people of Ladakh.”
On May 1, the NC as well as the Congress leaders in Kargil announced Hanifa’s name as a consensus candidate for the Lok Sabha election. However, the ‘unanimous’ announcement was turned down by the Congress high command. Last week, the party announced Namgyal, a member of Leh autonomous council, as its candidate for the election.
The announcement came despite resentment from both the Congress and the National Conference leaders in the Muslim-majority Kargil district, who had conveyed to their parties that after being represented in the parliament by leaders from Leh in two consecutive terms, it was time for a Kargil-based politician to enter the electoral fray.
Ladakh is one of the world’s most sparsely populated regions where Muslims have a slender majority over Buddhists. The Ladakh Lok Sabha constituency was won by Jamyang Tsering Namgyal in the 2019 parliamentary election and Thupstan Chhewang in the 2014 election.
Both Chhewang, who is seeking a second term in this election, and Namgyal, are senior Buddhist leaders from the Leh district.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the Congress fielded Tsering Samphel as its official candidate while another Congress leader, Ghulam Raza, fought the election as an independent candidate. A similar roadblock hit the party in the 2019 parliamentary election also when it had fielded Rigzin Saplbar, while another Congress leader, Asgar Ali Karbalai, entered the fray as an independent candidate.
“The Congress has no clear understanding of Ladakh and its electoral realities. The present crisis is also a painful reflection of how the NC-Congress alliance has failed to bring the two distinct regions and their religious communities together,” said a senior Ladakhi analyst, who didn’t want to be named.
Following the reading down of Article 370, the gulf between the Muslims and Buddhists had started to widen as Leh, which had been demanding a Union territory status for years, celebrated its separation from Jammu and Kashmir while the Muslim-majority Kargil mourned.
Innovator and environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk was among those who had celebrated the BJP’s move to divide J&K into two Union territories. There were also murmurs within the Buddhist community that the Ladakhi Muslims were finally shown their place by the BJP.
However, as the new constitutional reality of Ladakh, which has no legislature, dawned on the people in Leh who found themselves deprived of job security and land rights. They decided to throw a spanner in the works of the BJP by setting up the Leh Apex Body, among other groups, which are opposing the 2019 decision.
In recent months, Leh-based bodies have joined ranks with the Kargil Democratic Alliance, a conglomerate of Kargil-based social, political and religious groups, to put up a united fight against the BJP.
After the announcement of the Lok Sabha election schedule last month, the NC had opted to put up its candidates on three seats of Kashmir while the Congress decided to field its candidates on the remaining two seats in Jammu and one in Ladakh of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state, according to the seat-sharing arrangement between the two parties.
Last year, the NC-Congress combine had swept the election to the 26-member Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council-Kargil (LAHDC-K) by winning 22 seats, while the BJP won only two seats. In contrast, the BJP won 15 seats, followed by the Congress with nine seats, while the remaining two seats out of the 26 seats were won by independents in the LAHDC-Leh polls in 2020.
Speaking with The Wire, All India Congress Committee’s in-charge for Ladakh, Manoj Yadav, said that both the NC and the Congress leaders will campaign for Namgyal. “There is no question of division in the INDIA bloc in Ladakh,” he said. “Dr Abdullah had already issued directions to his party leaders. We are confident about winning the seat.”
