Ladakh Representatives Express Disappointment After Talks With Central Government Over Proposed Democratic Setup

No concrete consensus emerged in the meeting between the representatives of the central government and Ladakh regarding the future of Ladakh and the democratic set-up. The Ladakh delegation expressed disappointment after the talks between the senior officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the sub-committee of the Leh Apex Body (LAB) Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA). The delegation says that even in the meeting held after about 4 months, no written draft was given by the government regarding the proposed democratic set-up. According to Ladakh activist and LAB associate Sonam Wangchuk, the last meeting was held on 22 May. During this time it was expected that the Ministry of Home Affairs would come up with a concrete draft of the proposed political and democratic set-up for Ladakh based on the discussions held earlier. However, according to them, this did not happen. Wangchuk said that a list of questions was given to him in the meeting and informed that these issues would be discussed in the next meeting. He claimed that topics like assembly, direct delimitation and elections have already been discussed in the meeting and no concrete progress on the proposed democratic set-up has been made during this meeting.