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| Centre remains non-committal on granting statehood to Ladakh | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Dec 6: Even as the meeting of agitating groups of Ladakh with the Higher Powered Committee of the Union Government was held in cordial atmosphere to carry forward the dialogue process, the Centre is unlikely to grant to statehood to the Ladakh region.
Some of the groups are demanding statehood to Ladakh but majority of the people of the Leh district are not interested in agitating for getting statehood.
Highly placed sources said that during the meeting, held on December 4 at New Delhi, the Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai has not made any commitment to grant statehood to Ladakh.
Instead of responding to the demand of grant statehood, the Union Minister rather asked representatives of Ladakhi groups to focus on other issues and asked them to suggest measures to protect identity of the mountainous region.
Dialogue between the Union Government and representatives of Leh Apex Body (LAB) and Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) was restarted after a deadlock of over five months.
Reports said that agitating groups are also not very optimistic about earlier resolution of their long pending demands. The only achievement of Monday's meeting was the breaking of over five months long deadlock as there was no communication with the Union Government after May this year.
Reports said that during the meeting, the Union Minister only listened to our grievances patiently. He only assured them to seriously look into our long pending demands but has not committed to solving the same.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, on January 3 this year, constituted a High Powered Committee (HPC) headed by Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai to discuss land and employment safeguards for the Union Territory of Ladakh.
The committee was constituted to discuss measures to protect Ladakh's unique culture and language taking into consideration its geographical location and its strategic importance.
The KDA and the LAB have been spearheading the agitation in support of their four major demands including full-fledged statehood for Ladakh, implementation of the Sixth Schedule to protect the interest of the tribal people of Ladakh, separate Lok Sabha seats for Kargil and Leh, and establishment of “Ladakh Public Service Commission” with the Ladakh Resident Certificate (LRC) as a mandatory requirement for all Gazetted Posts in Ladakh. |
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