BJP seat turnout in Ladakh council drops from 18 to 15, Congress wins 4 | India News

SRINAGAR: In Ladakh’s first electoral exercise since it became a Union Territory, Bjp on Monday it maintained its grip on the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council even as its footprint was reduced from 18 seats to 15, and an even bigger setback was the defeat of the outgoing executive councilor. Gyal P. Wangyal. Congress won nine of the 26 seats at stake, nearly doubling its count of five in the previous council.
All major regional parties, including the National Conference (NC) and the Popular Democratic Party (PDP), boycotted the October 22 elections as part of the campaign to restore J & K’s special status. In the last Council of Ladakh polls in 2015, NC had won two seats.

This time, the field featured rookie AAP, who contested 19 seats and went blank. Two of the 23 independents in the fray won. Only one independent candidate had won in 2015. The government nominates four councilors from the House of 30.
The Kargil district of Ladakh has a separate hill council that was elected in 2018 for a five-year term.
Authorities said 89,776 voters, 45,025 of them women, had exercised their right to vote in 294 polling stations in 26 constituencies in the Leh district. The share was set at 65.07 percent. EVMs were used in Ladakh council polls for the first time.
In the 2010 elections, BJP had won just four seats while Congress had 22. In the previous council, BJP had 17 seats, Congress four, and NC two.
After the cancellation of Article 370. Last year, the BJP-led council passed a resolution seeking “safeguards” for the rights of the indigenous peoples of Ladakh under article 371. Buddhist spiritual leader Thupstan Chhewang, who had won the Ladakh LS He first ran for the BJP candidate in 2014, then resigned from the party, calling his promises “empty rhetoric.”