Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Apr 21: The battle of ballots in mountain locked Ladakh seat has been reduced to eight candidates, four of them bigwigs backed by major political parties or powerful religious organisations, as nomination form of one of the covering candidate was rejected during scrutiny of the nominations today. The candidates can withdraw their nominations till April 23.
Official sources told the Excelsior that nomination form of Chering Dorjey, covering candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was rejected during the scrutiny today. Dorjey, a former Chief Executive Councilor (CEC) of Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), Leh, had filed his nominations as covering candidate for BJP nominee Thupstan Chhewang.
With this, eight candidates have been left in fray for Ladakh seat that would go to polls on May 7 in fifth and final phase of polling in Jammu and Kashmir.
The candidates, who were left in the fray today after completion of scrutiny, were Thupstan Chhewang (BJP), former MP, Tsering Samphel (Congress), Aga Syed Kazim Sabri (Independent backed by Islamiya School Kargil, ISK), Ghulam Raza (Independent backed by Imam Khomeini Memorial Trust, IKMT, Kargil), Ghulam Abbas, Anayat Ali, Mohammad Amin and Haji Mohammad Hassan Lal, all Independents.
The scrutiny took place in the office of Deputy Commissioner, Leh Simrandeep Singh, who happened to be the Returning Officer for Ladakh seat, in the presence of General Observer Naveen Mahajan.
April 23 is last date for withdrawal of nominations.
With today’s withdrawals, only eight candidates have been left in the fray for Ladakh seat, the lowest among all six Lok Sabha seats of Jammu and Kashmir.
Significantly, the previous Lok Sabha election of 2009 had witnessed fight among five candidates in Ladakh. They were P Namgayal of Congress, Ghulam Murtaza of PDP, Asgar Ali Karblaie (Independent), Thinless Angmo (BJP) and Ghulam Hassan Khan (Independent). Mr Khan had won the seat defeating Namgayal by about 3600 votes. The PDP hasn’t fielded any candidate in Ladakh this time while sitting MP Khan is not contesting as ISK Kargil with whose support Khan had won is supporting Sabri this time.
Sources said though there were eight candidates in fray, Ladakh seat was headed for keen quadrangular contest among Chhewang, Samphel, Sabri and Raza. Moreover, some candidates could withdraw their nomination papers on April 23, they added.
Chhewang had won Ladakh seat in 2004. Samphel is district president of Congress for Leh. Both of them belonged to Leh district.
Sabri had the backing of ISK Kargil while Raza enjoyed the support of IKMT Kargil. Raza had resigned as district president of Congress for Kargil to join the electoral fray as Independent after being denied mandate by the party.
Sources said Kargil unit of the Congress wanted party mandate to a leader of Kargil district but the high command preferred a candidate of Ladakh after which Raza and other party leaders including LAHDC Kargil CEC Asgar Ali Karblaie revolted against the party and fielded Raza.
Political observers were of the view that Ladakh seat would witness keen contest as Chhewang and Samphel would split votes in Leh while Sabri and Raza would divide the votes of Kargil as all four candidates had good following. The victory margin like the previous election was expected to be very low, they said.
Significantly, Leh and Kargil districts have almost an equal number of electorates. Leh district has 79042 votes with 274 polling stations while Kargil district has 80589 votes with 257 polling stations. The total electorates for Ladakh seat included 1,59,631 with 531 polling stations.
Sources said bigwigs of BJP and Congress were likely to campaign for their candidates in Ladakh while religious leaders of Kargil and others would canvass for Sabri and Raza. Surprisingly, Congress has not taken any disciplinary action against Raza so far despite the fact that he was contesting against official party candidate, Tsering Samphel. Even the Congress has made no visible attempt to get Raza withdrawn from the contest as only two days were left for withdrawal of nominations.
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