Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday extended his Ladakh tour by six days and will meet the youth leaders and address a public gathering in Kargil.
Mr. Gandhi’s change in his otherwise two-day tour comes just weeks ahead of the polls for the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council-Kargil (LAHDC-Kargil), slated for September 10. He is arriving in Kargil, which is 200 km away from Leh, on August 24. He is likely to give impetus to the poll activities of his party cadre.
Party sources said National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah may also join Mr. Gandhi during the public rally on the morning of August 25.
“The Congress and the NC have decided to form an alliance for the LAHDC polls. We expect Mr. Abdullah to join and amplify the voices of secular forces here. The BJP remains the main opponent in Kargil and we intend to keep the BJP at bay,” Congress leader Nasir Munshi told The Hindu.
Meanwhile, sources in the NC sources told The Hindu that Mr. Abdullah has not been formally invited for the Kargil rally by the Congress and any decision about his participation “will be taken once approached”.
Mr. Gandhi will also observe the birth anniversary of his father and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Ladakh.
The NC and the PDP are the two main political forces in Kargil. In the 2018 polls, the NC won 10 seats and emerged as the single largest party in the 30-member LAHDC-K. The Congress emerged second by winning eight seats. The BJP managed to win only one seat.
Ahead of the polls, the NC is engaged in a major legal battle to retain the party symbol for the LAHDC-K polls. Mr. Abdullah had earlier announced that the court in Srinagar granted permission to the party to use the symbol, ‘Plough’.
Set up in 2003, the hill council, having a mandate to address local issues of governance, has 30 seats. Twenty-six councillors are elected from the respective constituencies and four councillors are nominated from the principal minority and women folk. Kargil, a hill district spread over 14,086 square kilometres, has a total population of 1.19 lakhs, according to the 2001 Census.
