The BJP on April 23 dropped incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) Jamyang Tsering Namgyal and nominated Tashi Gyalson, an advocate who heads the BJP-led Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council-Leh (LAHDC-Leh), as its candidate for the Ladakh Lok Sabha seat.
Mr. Gyalson is the best bet for the party given the anti-incumbency factor visible on the ground. Mr. Gyalson was elected as Chief Executive Councillor in 2020 after the BJP won a maximum number of 15 seats out of 26 seats in the LAHDC-Leh election in 2020.
Mr. Gyalson was also nominated as a member of a joint-sub-committee from Ladakh that is negotiating a settlement with the BJP-led Central government over the region’s several demands, including Statehood status and inclusion in the Sixth Schedule.
It’s the first Lok Sabha election in the region after being carved out as a Union Territory (UT) from erstwhile State of J&K in 2019. Since then, several Muslim and Buddhist organisations under the umbrella groups, the Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), are agitating over Statehood status and inclusion in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
Ladakh, with Buddhist-majority Leh and Muslim-Majority Kargil districts, has one Parliament seat at present.
Meanwhile, BJP’s Kargil union, headed by Haji Anayat Ali, congratulated Mr. Gyalson on being nominated as Ladakh candidate.
The Ladakh seat has a total number of 1,82,570 voters, including 91,703 men and 90,867 women voters. Around 577 polling stations have been set up in the region. The election for Ladakh is slated for May 20.
