Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 3: Many eyebrows were raised as the Central Election Committee (CEC) of BJP has not announced the candidate for the Ladakh Parliamentary constituency while announcing to repeat two sitting Lok Sabha members of Jammu and Udhampur segments.
Although BJP’s Ladakh unit is separate from the J&K unit, the general secretary organization and incharge and co-incharge were the same in both the Union Territories.
Ashok Koul, general secretary (organization) J&K is also holding the same position in the UT of Ladakh. The same are the positions of national general secretary Tarun Chugh and Ashish Sood, both are incharge and co-incharge of both the Union Territories. Highly placed sources said that along with Jammu and Kashmir, panels of potential candidates for the Ladakh Lok Sabha seat were forwarded to the CEC but the party high command has delayed the announcement of mandate for the only seat of the cold desert.
Highly placed sources said that BJP leadership is waiting for some positive outcome of ongoing dialogue between the sub-committee of the agitating Ladakhi groups and High Power Committee of the Min The Central Election Committee (CEC) of BJP has not announced the candidate for the Ladakh Parliamentary constituency.
Although BJP’s Ladakh unit is separate from the J&K unit, the general secretary organization and incharge and co-incharge are same in both the UTs.
Panels of potential candidates for the Ladakh Lok Sabha seat were forwarded but the party high command has delayed the announcement of mandate .
BJP leadership is waiting for some positive outcome of ongoing dialogue between the sub-committee of the agitating Ladakhi groups and High Power Committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Sources said that the party is not in a hurry to announce candidate for the Ladakh Lok Sabha seat because party leadership is trying to take prominent Buddhist leaders on the board before finalizing the candidate for the only seat of Ladakh.
For two successive Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has won the Ladakh Parliamentary seat. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election veteran politician of Ladakh Thupstan Chhewang had won this seat as BJP candidate by a margin of only 36 votes.
Earlier in 2004, Chhewang had won this seat as an Independent candidate.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections the BJP candidate Jamyang Tsering Namgyal, who was then sitting Chairman-cum-CEC of LAHDC Leh recorded an impressive victory margin of 10,930 votes over NC, PDP, and Islamiya School Kargil joint candidate, Sajjad Kargili. Namgayal polled 42,914 votes as against Sajjad Karigili’s 31984.
Two other candidates in the fray in Ladakh were Haji Asgar Karbalaie, former Congress MLA from Kargil, and Rigzin Spalbar (Congress) finished third and fourth with 29365 and 21241 votes respectively. Karbalaie had contested the election as an Independent. | 