Rekha Chowdhary
Though of a very local nature, the LAHDC (Kargil) elections that took place early this month assumed national stature. For many reasons, it had become a very high stake election with national level political leaders, commentators and political analysts showing keen interest in it. Certainly it was not not the first electoral exercise of Ladakh after being granted the status of UT. The LAHDC (Leh) election had already preceded it in 2020. But for Kargil, this was the first occasion when people had the chance to participate in electoral politics after the 2019 changes.
The hype for the election was created as much by the BJP as by the NC-Congress alliance. For both the sides, the electoral verdict was to be an important pointer towards state of things in Ladakh in general. The BJP being instrumental in bringing about the bifurcation of state of J&K and grant of UT status to Ladakh, was showcasing its developmental activities in Kargil and was claiming an impressive victory in large number of constituencies. The NC and Congress, on the other hand were pointing towards the restlessness in Kargil following the formation of the UT and plethora of demands being raised here including those related to political representation of Ladakh and protection of employment, environment and various other rights of Ladakhis.
The electoral process, before it could be organised on October 4th, was mired into a controversy of a different nature. This was due to Ladakh Administration’s denial of the ‘plough’ symbol to the NC for the Hill Council election. The administration had taken the position that following the reorganisation of the state of J&K, the Election Commission of India had recognised the NC as state party only of UT of J&K and not for Ladakh and therefore it could not use the plough as its party symbol for any election in Ladakh UT. Faced with the situation where its candidates would have to contest election as independent candidates, NC had taken the matter to the court. With the Single Bench of High Court and later the Double Bench giving decision in favour of the NC, the Ladakh Administration had taken the matter to the Supreme Court which upheld the High Court decision. While the Ladakh Administration was penalised with a fine of one lakh rupees, it also directed rescheduling the election process so as to give a fair chance to the NC (to campaign with its party symbol).
At the local level, the election for 26 seats of Hill Council elicited huge interest among the voters. Not only because this was the first election in Kargil after the formation of UT, but also because now Hill Council is the only representative institution in Ladakh where people can be linked with the Government process. Unlike J&K, the Ladakh UT is without a legislature and with the exception of a single Member of Parliament, there is no other representative body at the district or UT level. The two elected Hill Councils (of Leh and Kargil) therefore are much more valued than these were before 2019. Whatever issues that concern the local people would get to be articulated in the Hill Councils only. That is the reason that one can understand the high profile nature of campaign that preceded the election. The profile of campaign for instance for the BJP could be gauged from the fact that apart from its MP from Ladakh, Jamyang Tsering Namgayal, Minakshi Lekhi, the Union Minister of State for Cultural and External Affairs and BJP’s National General Secretary Tarun Chugh were involved in the process of electioneering. For NC, the campaign was personally led by Omar Abdullah along with his senior party colleagues. On the part of Congress, Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Kargil in late August was seen to be linked with the election.
Though Congress, NC, BJP and AAP were the parties in the fray, but the real contest in the election was between BJP on the one hand and the Congress/NC on the other. BJP, it needs to be emphasised, is relatively very new entrant in Kargil politics. It was as late as 2018 that BJP could enter the Hill Council by winning one seat. Traditionally, the contest here has been between the NC and the Congress. This time however, the NC and Congress had decided to have a strategic alliance with a view to keep away the BJP. The ‘strategic’ nature of alliance meant that while for many seats the two parties would be having ‘friendly contest’ against each other (giving the stronger partner the chance to win the election), but in the constituencies where there was a chance for BJP to perform better, the two parties would contest as one unit. The pre-poll alliance was also strategised to restrict the chances of the Independent candidates. With the provision of four member of Hill Councils being nominated by the administration, these two parties were apprehensive that in a situation of larger number of independent candidates winning the election, there may be a possibility of them joining the side of BJP after the election. (Of the 30 member Hill Council, 26 members are elected and 4 members with voting rights are nominated by the local administration).
The Electoral competition was quite intense with each political party quite consciously weighing its chances and making very rational decision as to how many seats to contest and from where to contest. Of the total 85 candidates in the fray, 22 were from Congress and 17 from NC. The BJP had also fielded its candidates in 17 constituencies and AAP, another new entrant had fielded 4 candidates.
As per the election verdict the NC was the largest winning party registering its victory over 12 seats. 10 seats were captured by the Congress and 2 went to the BJP. The Independents captured the rest of the two seats. AAP was the only party that faired badly and could not capture any seat. In terms of vote share however, it was the Congress that registered the largest share of votes (around 35%). The vote share of NC was around 31% and that of BJP around 14%, AAP’s performance was dismal even in terms of its vote share – 0.31 %.
Various Meanings of Electoral Verdict
It is interesting to see the way the electoral verdict has been interpreted. Victory has been claimed by both the sides. Congress-NC Alliance has claimed a clean sweep wiping the BJP out and limiting its share of seats within the Council to 2 only. The BJP on its part has claimed that it has done tremendously well improving its performance both in terms of seats and share of votes – that Its seat share has been doubled and that it has increased its vote share.
Certainly, the electoral verdict is in favour of NC-Congress alliance since these two parties together have captured 22 of the 26 seats in the Hill Council and registered a vote share of around 66%. The pre-poll alliance, therefore, clearly has worked their way. As an alliance, these parties have made a mark in the election. Since these two parties have also joined the national level alliance of opposition parties, their victory in Kargil is interpreted as a victory of INDIA Alliance as well.
Seen from this perspective, the ‘strategic’ alliance had actually the potential of doing still better had the two parties (NC and Congress) not fielded candidates against each other. In terms of the total tally of the alliance, it could have added one more seat of Stakchay Khangral constituency where both NC and Congress contested and their combined tally of votes is larger than that of the winning BJP candidate. As it became a multi-cornered contest with NC, Congress, BJP and two Independents competing, BJP got the advantage by polling the highest number of votes.
Of all the parties, it was the NC that had the most impressive performance in Kargil. Though its vote share was lesser than that of Congress but it had greater electoral impact not only in terms of winning more seats but also in terms of its proportion of victories. Larger vote share of Congress was due to its contesting the larger number of constituencies. It had contested 22 constituencies but had registered its victory on only 10 of these. As compared to that, the NC had contested lesser number of constituencies – only 17 and of these it won as many as 12. This in itself was quite impressive.
BJP that had entered the polls with lot of fanfare and claims, ended with Insignificant number of seats. However, as one can see, it has expanded its electoral imprint in this region. In assessing BJP’s share of votes and seats, it needs to be emphasised that BJP had no presence in this area till 2018 and seen from that perspective winning two seats with 14% vote share is no mean achievement. What adds to BJP’s performance is the fact that it lost very narrowly in three other constituencies – Padum by 54 votes, Shargole by 65 votes, Karsha by 79 votes.
In totality, therefore, one can see that there is a substance to the claims on both the sides. NC-Congress Alliance is certainly the clear winner sweeping the Kargil Hill Council. Not only its strategy to keep the BJP out has worked well but it has also got a number which gives it the assurance to remain in dominant position within the Council for the next five years. With the number of Independent members limited only to two, there is a greater chance of stability in the Council. The only condition for this is that the Alliance partners must stick with each other. The only failure, one can see is the AAP – which could not make any impact.
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