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| Ladakhis resolve to achieve UT status | | Telengana effect | | Rustam
JAMMU, Mar 2: Andhra Pradesh would be divided into two states of AP and Telengana. The Parliament has adopted legislation to this effect and President of India on Saturday also gave his assent to the reorganization of bill. In other words, Telengana State has become a reality. Of course, the people of this region had to fight for decades to achieve their goal. The creation of Telengana State has its impact on other states, including Maharashtra and Jammu & Kashmir.
In Jammu & Kashmir, the Ladakhis have decided to intensify their campaign for UT status. Infact, on February 26, many Ladakhis, cutting across religious lines, took out procession rally demanding UT status for Ladakh region. The rally was led by a political activist, Lobzang Nyantak, and it passed through main Bazar and culminated at the historic Polo Ground. Addressing the rally, he highlighted various reasons for seeking UT status for Ladakh and said that Telangana Bill was passed inspite of many hurdles such as pepper spray incident then why the demand of UT which is decades older than Telangana cannot be considered. "The Kashmir-centric government is trying to suppress Ladakh by making Hill Council weaker...If Ladakh is not given the UT, then the government with Kashmiri leadership will make Ladakh like three lakh Kashmiri Pandits residing in tent houses in Jammu," he also said. Another Ladakhi leader said that places like Andaman and Nicobar get nearly Rs 500 crore annual budget for developmental and Ladakh we must "at least get UT status which would further help us prevent incursions by China".
The Ladakhi leaders said that it was unfortunate that Ladakh was not separated from Jammu & Kashmir State, despite the fact that their leadership had approached Maharaja Hari Singh and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and demanded separation from Kashmir saying they couldn't endorse the Kashmiri leadership's autonomy demand. "The people of Ladakh had approach Maharaja in 1947 before declaration of independence that the region should be allowed to be merged with India as the people of Ladakh wanted to be part of sovereign, secular and democratic India and therefore we should be separated from J&K and allowed to merge in the national mainstream," they said. Reflecting on the history of UT status movement in the region, they told the gathering that the Ladakhi leadership had submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and told him that Ladakh was not part of either Jammu Kingdom or Kashmir and that it was an independent kingdom till 1836. They also said, and very rightly, that since then the people of Ladakh have been striving for separation from Jammu & Kashmir and that the people of the region had nothing in common with the people of two other regions of the State. "We must get UT status" was, infact, the upshot of the speeches made by many activists on February 26 at Polo Ground. Interestingly, both the Congress and the BJP, unlike all the Kashmir-based outfits, support the demand of the Ladakhis for UT status. |
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