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| Today is very crucial for Cong, BJP | | Leh Council Polls | |
Early Times Report
JAMMU, Oct 16: The people of Leh district of the trans-Himalayan Ladakh will on Saturday exercise their franchise to elect the fifth Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), Leh. The Congress has been controlling the Council for almost 15 years now. It won all the three previous elections hands down. However, this time, it is facing a tough situation. The reason is that the BJP has fielded 25 candidates and a newly formed New Ladakh Party (NLP) has also put up candidates in more than a dozen constituencies. As for the PDP and the NC, which have little stake in the region or which have little presence in the Leh district, have fielded eight candidates each. In the 2010 elections, the Congress had won 25 out of the 26 elected seats in the 30-member Council. The BJP had also tried its best to dislodge the Congress from the Council, but the Ladakhis had rejected it. The BJP could win only 4 seats. Remember, the Council consists of 26 elected members and 4 nominated members.
The BJP leaders from Jammu and Punjab camped at Leh for days together to garner people's support in favour of their party. They held a number of election rallies across the district and on Thursday, they claimed that they would decimate the Congress this time and capture the prestigious Council. They claimed that since the BJP candidate won the lone Ladakh Lok Sabha seat in May 2014, the BJP this time was better placed to meet the Congress' challenge and turn tables on the Congress candidates. However, they suppressed the fact that the BJP, which had contested all the four Assembly seats in Ladakh's twin districts of Leh and Kargil six months later, drew a blank and that it was the Congress which created a history of sorts by winning three of the four seats with an impressive margin. As for the fourth Assembly seat, it went to an independent candidate. The PDP and the NC, too, had failed to impress the voters of Ladakh.
As far as the Congress was concerned, it also campaigned extensively. It organized more than two dozen impressive election rallies, where it reflected on the Congress achievements or what the Congress did to develop Leh district during the past 15 years. If one goes by the nature and magnitude of people's participation in the election rallies addressed by the Congress leaders from the district and outside, including the JKPCC chief, then it can be assumed that the Congress is all set to upset the BJP's applecart. The advantage of the Congress is that it has popular leaders like Nawang Rigzin Jora, who campaigned in the district for almost two months. Jora as Minister had done much for the development of the district and he is considered as the most vocal voice of the Ladakhis in the State.
For the BJP and the Congress, these elections are very crucial. The Congress wishes to repeat the 2010 performance to establish that it is still a force to reckon with in the State, notwithstanding the fact that the party suffered a massive defeat in the 2014 Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. The Congress had failed to win even a single Lok Sabha seat and its tally in the Assembly had come down from 17 in 2008 to 11 in 2014. A victory would boost the moral of the Congress not only in Leh but also in Jammu region and Kashmir Valley. For the Congress, these are make or break elections. That's the reason the Congress leadership didn't leave any stone unturned to recapture the Council.
The story of the BJP is no different. For the BJP, these elections are all the more crucial because it has become pariah in Jammu region because of which it came into power for the first time in the State. It is hardly necessary to catalogue here the reasons which have dented its image in the Jammu region. Suffice to say, that the BJP surrendered everything to Kashmir, abandoned its ideology and willingly became a party to the decisions which have further jeopardized the political and economic interests of the people of Jammu region. The people of Jammu region are angry with the BJP to the extent that if elections are held today, the BJP will not win a single seat. The BJP leadership knows all this and that's the reason the party leadership campaigned so extensively and intensely in Leh district. A victory in the Council elections would increase the confidence of the party leadership both in the State and at the Centre. Besides boosting the morale of the otherwise demoralized BJP leadership, the victory in the Leh polls would provide it an opportunity to beat the Congress from right and left and claim that those who wrote their obituary were not aware of the people's pulse.
Any way, things will become clear on October 23, when the election authorities would declare the election results. Indeed, the next six days would be days of worry both for the Congress, which wants to retain control over the Council, and BJP, which wants to create history by capturing the Council. |
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