Ladakh closes due to demand for statehood, local leaders meet with MoS Home
Union Minister of State for the Interior Nityanand Rai held talks on Saturday with local leaders of Leh and Kargil districts, even as residents of Union territory transcend political borders and nuns, observed a full bandh on their request for statehood and constitutional guarantees under the 6th Schedule of the Constitution.
The meeting in Leh lasted nearly three hours, with leaders of the Apex Body of Leh and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) demanding Ladakh statehood and constitutional guarantees for its people under the 6th annex.
They also demanded that a recruitment process be held for local youth, in addition to the separate Lok Sabha headquarters for Leh and Kargil districts.
KDA co-chair and head of the National Conference, Qamar Ali Akhoon, said Rai heard them and assured that a committee would be formed, consisting of five members each from the Apex body and the KDA, in addition some officials from the Ministry of Interior, the deputy of Ladakh and the chief executive advisers of the councils of Leh and Kargil hills. He also assured that the recruitment of local youth would start at the earliest, Akhoon said.
The supreme body and the KDA are separate groups of political, social, religious, commercial and cultural organizations in Leh and Kargil districts, respectively. They were trained to push Ladakh’s demand for statehood and constitutional guarantees to its people under the 6th Schedule.
Ladakh MP Tsering Jamyang Namgiyal from BJP did not attend the meeting. On August 5, 2019, he supported in Lok Sabha the Centre’s decision to remove the special status of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir under article 370. Namgiyal is also a member of the Apex Body of Ladakh .
Saturday’s Ladakh Bandh came when Lok Sabha President Om Birla, along with a few Union Ministers and BJP MPs, were in Leh as part of the Third Parliamentary Outreach Program for the Empowerment of Panchayati Institutions Raj in the new UT.
Whereas they previously had different positions on the question of the status of the UT in Ladakh, on August 1 the organizations of Ladakh and Kargil joined to seek a full state as well as constitutional guarantees for the region. .
The two organizations called for a general strike in Ladakh on Saturday, saying their efforts to start a dialogue with the Union’s Home Ministry had not received a positive response and that an attempt had been made to ” divide the people of Ladakh ”by separately inviting their voters. by Rai instead of inviting a joint delegation.
With PTI inputs
