news details |
|
|
| Why did Ladakhis reject Congress? | | Leh Council Polls | | Early Times Report
jammu, Oct 24: The Congress, which controlled the prestigious Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), Leh, for 15 long years, on Friday suffered a humiliating defeat. It could win only 5 sets out of 25 it contested. Even the sitting Chief Executive Councilor (CEC) of the LAHDC Leh Rigzin Spalbar couldn't make it to the Council. He had won all the earlier four elections to the Council. In 2010, the Congress had won as many as 21 seats in the 30-member Council out of which four members are nominated members. But more than that, the Congress had inflicted a crushing defeat on the BJP in December 2014 by capturing both the Leh and Nobra Assembly constituencies despite the fact that just six months before the BJP candidate Thupstan Chhewang had captured the lone Ladakh Lok Sabha seat. The BJP won the Lok Sabha seat in Ladakh for the first time. That the Congress, which had 21 Councilors in the fourth Council and two sitting MLAs, including Nawag Rigzin Zora, besides scores of other local prominent Congress leaders, could win only 5 seats speaks for itself.
It was the BJP, which created a history of sorts by winning 18 out of 25 Council seats it contested and the victory margins of most of the BJP candidates were quite impressive. In the previous election, the BJP had won only four seats. Indeed, there are reasons for the BJP to celebrate its victory in the cold-desert and strategic Ladakh. Its victory must have shocked the Kashmiri separatists, who claimed that they were the true representatives of the people of the entire state comprising Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions. With the massive victory of the BJP first in Jammu province in the 2014 assembly elections and now in Leh district of Ladakh region in the Council election, it has become more than clear that the people of these two provinces have nothing to do with the ongoing secessionist movement in Kashmir and that they were, and are, part of the national mainstream. Besides, the defeat of the Congress, the PDP and the NC and victory of the BJP must have sent a right signal to the international community which looks at things through Kashmiri lens. And remember, Jammu province and Ladakh region constitute almost 90 per cent of the state's geographical area. It is, however, a different story that the BJP too has deviated from its path and disappointed the people of Jammu province by sharing power in a government that is fundamentally Kashmir-centric.
Why did the Congress perform so poorly? There were many reasons. First, the Congress was a divided house. It failed to keep its flock together at a critical time. Its leadership knew that there were many disgruntled but prominent leaders within the party who were sulking and who had hinted that they could leave the party, but it failed to take the required remedial measures. The result was that more than a dozen senior Congress leaders quit the party just a few days before the crucial election. And the Congress leader and former minister Nawang Rigzin Jora, who masterminded the whole election campaign, had fallen from grace due to its acts of omission and commission. Notwithstanding the fact that he as a cabinet minister did much for the development of Leh district, he was unable to provide the kind of leadership the Congress needed at this point in time.
It's not just Rigzin Jora and his team consisting of leaders like CEC of the LAHDC Leh Rigzin Spalbar, former MP P Namgyal and former MLA T Samphel, who failed to keep the flock together, which harmed the poll prospects of the Congress candidates. Another very important factor that led to the defeat of the Congress in the region, which was once considered a pocket borough of the Congress party, was the manner in which the leaders like Rigzin Jora endorsed each and every stand the Kashmir-controlled JKPCC took on sensitive issues and issues of national importance. They behaved in a manner which gave the people of Ladakh to understand that their leadership's stand on Jammu & Kashmir and on demands like autonomy was no different from that of Kashmiri leadership. They, like their Kashmiri masters in the Congress, always supported the controversial 1975 Indira Gandhi-Sheikh Abdullah accord that provided for a review of the central laws which were applied to the state after August 1953.
What must have shocked the Ladakhi Buddhists all the more was the stand Rigzin Jora took on the beef controversy, which was not consistent with the stand taken by the Congress at the national level. At the national level, the Congress by and large supported beef ban, but Rigzin Jora, Leader of the Congress Legislature Party in the Assembly, declared that his party will support the private member's bill seeking revocation of Sections 298 A, B, C and D of the Ranbir Penal Code which ban cow slaughter and consumption of beef in the state.
Yet another cause that contributed to the defeat of the Congress in the Council elections was the indifferent attitude of the Congress leaders from Jammu province and New Delhi. They left everything to the care of leaders like Rigzin Jora and the result was what it was. No one would buy the argument of the defeated Congress that the BJP could the elections because it held out a false promise that the BJP, if elected to the Council, will grant U T status to Ladakh.
All in all, it can be said that the defeat of the Congress, the PDP and the NC and the impressive victory of the BJP in Ladakh has opened a new chapter in the political history of the region. However, it will be interesting to see how the in-power-BJP behaves in the region. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
