The results thrown up in the Ladakh Hill Development Council (LAHDC-K) elections will make it an uphill task for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to retain the Lok Sabha seat of Ladakh in the upcoming 2024 elections.
The BJP was able to win just two seats out of 26 constituencies that went to polls on October 4, 2023. The victory margin on the two seats of Cha and Stakchay Khangral constituencies was not significant for the party. The BJP won the Cha constituency by a margin of 234 votes and the Stakchay Khangral by 177 votes.
Except for these two seats, the BJP managed to pose a stiff fight only in the Buddhist-majority Padum constituency, where it bagged 1691 votes against the NC’s 1745 votes. The BJP’s performance comes in spite of two senior BJP leaders Meenakshi Lekhi and Tarun Chugh joining the local leadership to campaign for the party in length and breadth of the region. Ladakh, after becoming a Union Territory in 2019, is ruled directly by the Centre, which is pushing several development initiatives in the region.
In the 2019 parliamentary elections, young and firebrand BJP leader Jamyang Tsering Namgyal won the Lok Sabha seat of Ladakh with a margin of 10,930 votes against a popular Independent candidate Sajjad Kargili.
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Ladakh has twin 26-member hill councils, one in Leh and another in Kargil. In 2020, the BJP further widened its base and also swept the LAHDC-Leh polls. It bagged 15 seats out of 26, followed by the Congress at 9 seats. However, the Kargil results have weakened the overall grip of the BJP in Ladakh and set a stage for a new calculus.
Out of 52 seats in the twin hill councils of Leh and Kargil, the Congress now has the highest number of 19 seats, followed by the BJP at 17 and the National Conference at 12. If the NC-BJP alliance decides to field a joint candidate, the BJP, which holds sway in 17 seats at present, has to work hard to win votes from 31 seats under the alliance.
The BJP is also facing a backlash from the Buddhist population in Leh for failing to meet their demands, which include a Statehood and constitutional guarantees under Sixth Schedule of the Constitution for Ladakh “to protect its unique culture, language, environment”.
Buddhists have also opposed opening up of land and jobs for outsiders in Ladakh. The Leh Apex Body, with the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA), an influential religious body at its forefront, has shown open resentment against the BJP over these demands in the past. The growing friction between the LBA and BJP is likely to play a major factor during the 2024 polls in Ladakh, unless the two bridge the differences.
According to the 2011 census, Ladakh has a population of 2,74,289, comprising 1.27 lakh Muslims and 1.08 Buddhists.
