The first Lt Governor of the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh, R K Mathur was removed from his post Sunday, with the Centre appointing Brigadier (retired) B D Mishra in his place. This came as part of the Centre’s move to appoint Governors in a dozen states and one UT.
The nearly three-year-three-month tenure of Mathur as the Ladakh L-G was marked with recurrent protests by various civil society groups as well as the elected members of the BJP-ruled Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC)-Leh over a range of issues.
Ladakh became a UT on October 31, 2019, two months after the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state into two UTs – J&K and Ladakh – by the Centre. This had been the long-standing demand of many Buddhists of Ladakh, who celebrated the Centre’s move granting the UT status to the region.
However, three years down the line, the UT has been in the throes of a sustained agitation by various bodies seeking statehood and constitutional safeguards for land, jobs and culture under the Sixth Schedule. The civil society groups of the UT’s two districts, Leh and Kargil, have come together under the aegis of the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) over these issues. They are now going to hold a joint protest in Delhi on February 15.
Observers attribute the raging unrest in Ladakh, especially in the Buddhist-dominated Leh, to the Mathur administration’s “failure” to decentralise power. Many people in Leh and Kargil point out that L-G Mathur’s tenure saw the “undermining” and “disempowerment” of the elected Hill Councils in both the districts by his administration.
