New Delhi, September 2026 : Social activist Sonam Wangchuk has threatened to launch a fresh agitation in Ladakh from September 19 to 24 if the Centre fails to provide assurances within a week on the region's key demands, including statehood and constitutional safeguards.
Wangchuk made the announcement on Thursday after representatives of Ladakh's major groups expressed disappointment over their latest meeting with a sub-committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
Speaking to the media in Delhi, Wangchuk said the groups had hoped that the meeting would help resolve their concerns and eliminate the need for another protest or padyatra. However, he said no concrete assurances had been given so far.
“We are helpless. We were thinking that there would be no need to carry out a protest or a padyatra, but... We have not received any assurance. If we don't receive an assurance, then we would be forced to launch a massive agitation,” he said.
Wangchuk said the proposed padyatra would now take place between September 19 and 24, but stressed that the groups remained hopeful of receiving a satisfactory response from the government within the next week.
Representatives of the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) met MHA officials on Wednesday to discuss their longstanding demands. The Union Home Ministry described the meeting as positive, but the Ladakh groups maintained that the talks had failed to provide the clarity they were seeking.
One of their key concerns was the absence of a draft proposal for establishing a UT-level elected body for Ladakh.
KDA representative Sajjad Kargili said the delegation had travelled from Ladakh expecting that a draft proposal would be prepared for the proposed elected body, an issue on which there was broad consensus among the stakeholders.
“We were hoping that the talks would go forward from there... But unfortunately, we were disappointed,” Kargili said.
He added that the proposals could be considered satisfactory only after a draft was formally shared and its provisions examined by the Ladakh representatives.
Ladakh was carved out as a separate Union Territory from the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir following the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. Since 2021, the LAB and KDA have held discussions with the Centre over demands for greater political representation, constitutional safeguards and an elected legislative body.
The groups have also sought greater clarity over the distribution of powers in the Union Territory, particularly concerning law and order and other administrative responsibilities.
The latest development indicates that differences between the Ladakh representatives and the Centre remain unresolved, with the groups now giving the government a week to respond before deciding on their next course of action.
(Disclaimer :The content of this article is sourced from a news agency and has not been edited by the Mavericknews30 team.)
