Kiren Rijiju meets with leaders of Ladakh for talks on protecting rights of locals
After days of negotiations, a group of leaders decided to call off its decision to boycott the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council election in Leh. The centre in turn has assured them that all issues related to language, demography, ethnicity and jobs in the region will be taken care of.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah had sent Junior Home Minister G Kishan Reddy to visit Ladakh on Monday and meet a cross-section of people in the Union Territory to allay their apprehensions. The election will take place on October 16.
In a joint statement, former Ladakh MPs Thiksay Rinpoche and Thupstan Chhewang, former Jammu and Kashmir minister Chhering Dorje and Union Ministers Kiren Rijiju and G Kishan Reddy said the delegation was assured that all issues related to language, demography, ethnicity, land and jobs will be considered positively and taken care of.
"A dialogue between a larger Ladakhi delegation comprising representatives from Leh and Kargil districts under the aegis of Peoples Movement for Constitutional Safeguard Under Sixth Schedule for Ladakh and Union Home Ministry would commence after 15 days of the culmination of LAHDC, Leh elections," Mr Rijiju said, adding any decision reached in this connection would be in consultation with the representatives from Leh and Kargil.
The two junior ministers said Home Minister Amit Shah assured the delegation that the central government is committed to empower the LAHDC of Leh and Kargil and would protect the interests of the people of the Union Territory.
Mr Shah assured the "imminent leaders" that the centre would explore all avenues towards this objective including under the 6th Schedule of the Constitution.
The LAHDC is scheduled to go to polls on October 16 - the first such exercise in the region after Ladakh was carved out from Jammu and Kashmir and granted Union Territory status on August 5 last year - following the scrapping of special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
Earlier, leaders from that region had said it will boycott the LAHDC elections till such time the constitutional safeguard under sixth schedule on the lines of Bodo Territorial Council is not extended to Ladakh and its people.
"There are only three lakh tribals in our region. If people from rest of the country start settling there, we will lose our identity. The government has assured us that this won't happen," former Lok Sabha MP Thumstan Chhewang told NDTV.
"We are not asking for domicile law but we want government should protect our land and identity," former Jammu and Kashmir minister Chhering Dorje added.
According to him, after scrapping Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, people of Ladakh have some apprehensions about their future, land, culture and jobs since there is no longer any legislative body there.
"After creation of the UT, people thought that the autonomous bodies will be empowered. Unfortunately, the kind of work should have been done, did not happen. The pandemic also played a role," he said.
"Many people thought that powers of the autonomous bodies have been curtailed. There have been strong feelings of unhappiness. We were worried that such unhappiness among the youth should not go in a wrong way," he said.
The group, he said, has been seeking the empowerment of the autonomous bodies similar to the Bodo Territorial Council in Assam. The former MP said after their meeting with the Home Minister, they now think that their apprehensions will be addressed and people's rights protected.