LEH (The Thursday Times) — Authorities in Ladakh have barred the activist Sonam Wangchuk from organising or joining any unauthorised rally, procession, or public gathering for 60 days, as the region’s leaders reject elections due in the depths of winter and warn of protests.
The order, issued by Leh’s additional district magistrate under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, restricts Wangchuk’s movement and took effect immediately. It says Leh’s senior superintendent of police asked for preventive orders, citing Wangchuk’s “activities, previous antecedents and alleged attempts to mobilise and instigate the general public”.
The order argues that such activities, if left unchecked, could disrupt the elections now under way in Leh district, where a model code of conduct is in force. Sajjad Kargili, a co-chairman of the Kargil Democratic Alliance, shared it on X with the words “State of democracy in Ladakh.”
It came a day after police removed Wangchuk from a protest site in Leh and escorted him home.
Protests banned in Leh and Kargil
Ladakh’s chief electoral officer, Rahul Sharma, on Wednesday also banned political protests within the municipal limits of Leh and Kargil until the municipal election process ends. His order said such gatherings could intimidate voters, disturb public order, and undermine the conditions for free and fair elections, and it told election officers and police chiefs in both districts to enforce it.
Ladakh holds panchayat and municipal elections on November 21. On Tuesday, Chief Secretary Ashish Kundra announced December 4 as polling day for all eight of the region’s autonomous hill development councils, the first such vote since six new districts were created this year.
Kundra has said a December vote would give the new councils time to prepare budgets for next year. The administration says it has arranged heated polling stations.
‘Peaceful but intense agitations’
The Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance, which lead Ladakh’s campaign for statehood and constitutional safeguards, want the council elections moved to April or May. They say temperatures in December and January fall below minus 30 degrees Celsius in places and that a large share of residents leave the region in winter, which they argue would cost thousands of people their vote.
“Holding elections in peak winter months compromises democratic participation,” said Chering Dorjay, the Apex Body’s chairman. The two groups have also asked for a review of a recent redrawing of constituencies.
In a joint video, their leaders asked the country’s leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, to intervene “before we are forced to start peaceful but intense agitations to demonstrate our pain”.
Ladakh’s member of parliament, Mohmad Haneefa Jan, has written to Home Minister Amit Shah asking for the council polls to be held in the spring. Kargil observed a shutdown against the timing in recent days, and three groups in Leh have called for a boycott.
An old grievance
Wangchuk has accused the administration of moving at “rocket speed” on the polls while a judicial inquiry into deadly clashes in Leh on September 24 last year moves “at snail’s pace”. Four people were killed by police fire in those clashes. Wangchuk was jailed days later and released in March after six months.
He has also said talks with the central government on restoring democratic rule in Ladakh have broken down. Ladakh has been governed directly by New Delhi as a union territory since 2019, when it was separated from Jammu and Kashmir.
