In Kargil’s first council polls since 2019, it’s BJP vs others

In the last council in Kargil, the BJP had three members, only one of whom was elected on its ticket. The other two had switched allegiance from the PDP. This time, the party has fielded 17 candidates.

The 30-member council has 26 elected and four nominated members. In the outgoing council, while the NC had 10 members, the Congress had 8 and Independents 5.

“BJP ne kya nahin toda,” said Akhoon Shujaat, the owner of a tea stall in the main market at Drass, referring to the splitting of the former state into two UTs “and the state of the rest of the country”.

This year, there are 85 candidates in the fray for the 26 constituencies, the voting for which will be conducted through EVMs – in a first for the council elections.

After a long-drawn court battle over retaining their party symbol, which delayed the elections originally scheduled for September, 17 candidates from the NC have filed nominations. While the Congress has 22 candidates in the fray, the AAP has four candidates. Also in the contest are 25 independents.

While the NC and Congress have a seat-sharing arrangement in the region, members of both parties said the arrangement has been limited to areas where there is a tougher contest with the BJP while in other areas they have fielded their respective candidates.

The biggest grouse for Kargil at the moment is a weakening of its administrative set-up and the diminishing role for its autonomous hill council.

Mubarak Shah Nagvi, the NC sitting councillor contesting for a second term from the Ranbirpora constituency in Drass, said that in the past while the councils drew and monitored all developmental plans for the region, they also executed centrally sponsored schemes for the Government of India.

“Now, with the UT administration becoming the overarching authority for all developmental works, funds that earlier carried on or could be kept aside from one financial year to the next, are lapsing year after year,” he said.

In its first full year as a UT, in 2020-21, the Ladakh administration was able to spend only 27 per cent of its allocated budget of close to Rs 6,000 crore, according to a report by a parliamentary panel that was tabled in the Rajya Sabha in December 2021. As opposed to this, the hill councils of both Leh and Kargil spent over 90 per cent of their combined budgets of close to Rs 500 crore.

The reason for this, councillors said, is that Ladakh only has a working season of four months. “Whatever you have to do, you can only do in these four months – June through September,” said a councillor.

Nagvi stated that while Leh has made inclusion under the Sixth Schedule the main focus of its politics, “the people of Drass want statehood, ideally, statehood as it existed on August 4, 2019, with Ladakh as part of the state of J&K”.

For three years since 2019, protests have dominated the streets of Kargil. After the initial outpouring, the protests became a regular feature every Friday, demanding a rollback of the bifurcation of J&K. The Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) was constituted in August 2020 as a socio-political group to represent the people of Kargil. The KDA and the Leh-based Apex Body have come together to negotiate the region’s demands with the Ministry of Home Affairs.

“Development with dignity and identity is the main focus for us in this election,” said Sajad Kargili, activist and a member of KDA.

In his campaigning, BJP MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal has touted the success of centrally sponsored schemes in Ladakh as well as the infrastructure push by the Centre. The Zojila tunnel has been a long-awaited dream for the people of the region as it promises all-weather road connectivity between J&K and Ladakh.

This, locals said, is an important factor. On the highway leading to Kargil, trucks carrying construction material and machinery dominate the landscape.

Former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who is leading the NC’s election campaign, said on Saturday that this election is an opportunity to “accept or reject” the decisions of August 5, 2019. “What was given to Kargil after 5th August 2019? I laid the foundation stone of Zojila tunnel together with Rahul Gandhi, transmission line, power house and whatever other projects there are, they are all before 2019. Also after 2019 nothing new came here but only loss. We thought that these people would arrange at least one regular flight to Kargil airport, but they failed to do that,” he said.

While campaigning for the election will officially come to an end in the evening on October 2, the candidates state that in a small region like this, it is not large rallies but a door-to-door appeal that will make the difference.