A FRACTURED CONSTITUENCY

Statehood, and coverage under Sixth Schedule: two clear demands fog up the BJP's windscreen on its Ladakh drive

- Moazum Mohammad

Resistance against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for "non-fulfillment of poll promises". Infighting within that party. And cracks within the Opposition INDIA bloc, mirroring the fractured politics of the region. Ladakh may be all of one Lok Sabha constituency, even if India's biggest one, but it bristles with multiple personalities-enough to make 2024 a particularly thorny election season. In the fray are the BJP's Tashi Gyalson, the Congress's Tshering Namgyal and the National Conference's (NC) Haji Hanifa Jan, fighting as an Independent. With an electorate numbering 182,571, Ladakh votes on May 20, against the backdrop of a popular agitation joined by all sides.

The BJP, which had won the seat in the two previous general elections, has fielded Gyalson-a 57-year-old advocate. Challenges for the party include both infighting and anti-incumbency. Soon after Gyalson's candidature was announced, Ladakh's sitting BJP MP, the 1985-born Jamyang Tsering