Elections to 26 seats of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council to be held on Thursday

Elections to 26 seats of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council in Leh will be held on Thursday with 94 candidates in the fray. This is the first electoral exercise in Ladakh after the region was carved out of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019, and declared a separate Union Territory.
The administration has made elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of polls and set up 294 polling stations, including 122 in far-off places, for about 89,700 voters in the area under LADHC (Leh). The administration has decided to impose section 144 on the election day, banning the assembly of four or more persons. Voting will be held between 8 am and 4 pm.

In the 30-member LAHDC (Leh), 26 members are elected while four are nominated, with no voting rights. In the current dispensation, the BJP has 18 elected representatives, Congress has five, National Conference has two and one member is an independent.

This year the contest is mainly between the two national parties, the BJP and the Congress, as the regional parties, including National Conference and People’s Democratic Party, haven’t filed any nominations. The new entrant in the elections in Leh is the Aam Aadmi Party, which has fielded 19 candidates, while independent candidates are contesting on 23 seats.

The election results will be declared on October 26.

The elections are happening at a time when India and China are engaged in a protracted face-off in eastern Ladakh since May this year and communication lines are often down in the region due to security reasons. Also, a fresh wave of Covid-19 pandemic poses a challenge in conducting the elections.

The hill council in Leh was created under LAHDC Act in 1995 and later another hill council was formed in Kargil in 2003.

Earlier, People’s Movement for the Sixth Schedule for Ladakh – consisting of influential religious, political, cultural and civil society groups – had called for election boycott demanding constitutional safeguards for the newly formed Union Territory. It withdrew the boycott call when Union home minister Amit Shah gave an assurance of addressing its demands within 15 days of the formation of the new LAHDC after the elections.