Kiren Rijiju meets with Ladakh leaders for talks on protecting residents’ rights
New Delhi:
After days of negotiations, a group of leaders decided to overturn their decision to boycott the election of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council in Leh. The center in turn assured them that all issues related to language, demography, ethnicity and employment in the region would be taken care of.
Union Interior Minister Amit Shah sent Interior Minister G Kishan Reddy on Monday to visit Ladakh and meet with a representative sample of people in 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 Kashmiri Minister Chhering Dorje and Union ministers Kiren Rijiju and G Kishan Reddy said the delegation was confident that all issues related to language, demography, ethnicity, land and employment will be viewed positively and supported.
“A dialogue between a larger Ladakhi delegation comprising representatives of Leh and Kargil districts under the aegis of the Peoples Movement for Constitutional Safeguarding under the Sixth Program for Ladakh and the Union Ministry of the Interior would start 15 days after the culmination of the LAHDC elections, Leh, ”said Rijiju said, adding that any decision taken in this regard would be made in consultation with the representatives of Leh and Kargil.
The two subordinate ministers said Home Secretary Amit Shah assured the delegation that the central government is committed to empowering the LAHDC in Leh and Kargil and will protect the interests of the people of the Union territory. .
Mr. Shah assured the “imminent leaders” that the center will explore all avenues towards this goal, including within the framework of the 6th annex of the Constitution.
The LAHDC is due to go to the polls on October 16 – the first such exercise in the region after Ladakh was separated from Jammu and Kashmir and granted Union territory status on August 5 of the year. last – as a result of the abolition of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
Previously, leaders in that region had said they would boycott the LAHDC elections until the constitutional guarantee of the sixth calendar on the Bodo Territorial Council lines was not extended to Ladakh and its people.
“There are only three Lakh tribes in our area. If people from the rest of the country start to settle there, we will lose our identity. The government has assured us that this will not happen,” the said. former MP for Lok Sabha Thumstan Chhewang at GalacticGaming.
“We are not asking for a domicile law, but we want the government to protect our land and our identity,” added former Jammu and Kashmiri minister Chhering Dorje.
According to him, after the abolition of Article 370, which granted a special status to Jammu and Kashmir, the inhabitants of Ladakh have apprehensions about their future, their land, their culture and their jobs since they do not there is more legislative body in this country.
“After the establishment of UT, people thought that the autonomous bodies would be empowered. Unfortunately, the kind of work should have been done, did not take place. The pandemic also played a role,” he said. he declares.
“Many people thought that the powers of the autonomous organs had been limited. There were strong feelings of unhappiness. We feared that such unhappiness among young people did not happen in the wrong direction,” he said. declared.
The group, he said, called for the empowerment of autonomous bodies similar to the Bodo Territorial Council in Assam. The former MP said after their meeting with the Home Secretary they now believed their apprehensions would be addressed and people’s rights protected.
