People of Ladakh are enthused about taking part in these elections as they await the development of their region.
People in Ladakh region, especially in Leh and Kargil areas, are upbeat about the scheduled civic elections as they are going to elect members for municipal committees in the first phase of the elections on October 8.
This is for the first time that people of Ladakh are participating in Local Urban Body elections as there was no municipal committee existing in this region. “We are very excited about these polls as we have a lot of say in these elections,” Zainab Banoo told The Sunday Guardian while talking over phone from Kargil. She said that they have many female candidates in the fray, and added that there is huge activity of door-to-door campaign being conducted by female candidates in both Leh and Kargil towns.
According to State Election Department data, over 6,000 voters will use their vote for the Municipal Committee of Kargil and over 14,000 voters will participate for the Municipal Committee of Leh. In Ladakh region, already there are local governments in the shape of Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils
(LAHDCs).
The people of Ladakh are very much for development and are enthused to take part in these elections. Among all the three regions, this hilly region of Ladakh is showing lots of activities regarding the civic elections. Both BJP and Congress are involved in aggressive campaigning in the entire region to gain control over the Municipal Committees in Kargil and Leh, having 13 wards each.
Talking to this newspaper, former minister and Leh MLA from Congress, Nawang Rigzin Jora said that people in Leh town have much hope on the Congress for the development of the region and claimed that there is little support for BJP to win these elections.
BJP, on the other hand, said that they have gone to the people with the agenda of development in Ladakh and are confident to win these polls on the basis of their performance. Tsering Namgyal, BJP councillor in Leh Development Hill Council, told this reporter that they have been able to develop Ladakh at a fast pace. He claimed that they have done much development in Ladakh in the past few years as compared to other regimes in the past 70 years.
In Kargil town, reports said that there is some impact of the boycott call given by National Conference and PDP.
The recently held Kargil Autonomous Hill Development elections were won by the NC, while the Congress also got a good number of seats. While the Congress is in the fray, people are showing huge interest in these elections and there would be participation of people despite the boycott call give National Conference and PDP, reports suggest.