Ladakh groups meet the Home Ministry today, one day before a Kargil-to-Leh march

Representatives of the Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance sit down with the Union Home Ministry's High-Powered Committee around 16:00 on 9 September in New Delhi. They arrived on Tuesday. A Kargil-to-Leh foot march in support of statehood and Sixth Schedule status is listed to start on 10 September and run until 24 September. The talks and the road movement are now one day apart.

Sajjad Kargili of the KDA said the groups will press for Sixth Schedule inclusion to protect land, culture, jobs, ecology and identity. LAB convener Gelek Phunchok said the immediate task is to lock the draft that came out of the 22 May sitting and to secure the unconditional withdrawal of police cases from the 24 September 2025 protests, a point he said was written into minutes signed by the MHA, LAB and KDA on 3 July. The groups also want compensation for four civilians killed and for those injured in last year's street action.

The Centre's public position has not moved to statehood. After the May meeting the Home Ministry called statehood a "long-term aspiration" and offered a "customised sui generis model" by adding provisions to Article 371. That model would create a Union Territory-level elected body with executive, financial and legislative powers. At an 19 August sitting in Leh the Ladakh side submitted what it called non-negotiable demands: a directly elected legislative assembly headed by a chief minister and council of ministers, with constitutional safeguards drawn from the arrangements used in Nagaland, Sikkim and Mizoram.

While the political text stalls, the Lieutenant Governor's administration has stacked confidence-building measures around the table. A bench of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh is being set up in the Union Territory. The Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils (Nautor Regularisation) Rules, 2026 have been approved to give proprietary rights to genuine nautor landholders. Hill councils are planned for all seven districts, including the five new ones. Each council is proposed with 30 members. Seven councils would mean 210 elected seats in a territory of about 3.5 lakh people.

Chief Secretary Ashish Kundra has described the 9 September meeting as part of a dialogue to deepen democratic processes. That phrase papers over the gap. LAB and KDA want a constitutional lock on land and jobs that a future Parliament cannot dilute by ordinary law. Article 371 special provisions can be written to look similar on paper. They sit in a different chapter of the Constitution and they have a different political history. Sixth Schedule councils in the Northeast are a known template. A sui generis UT assembly is a template that does not yet exist.

The calendar is doing some of the work the drafting has not. A march from Kargil to Leh through mid-September will keep cameras on the talks whether or not the sub-committee produces a paragraph both sides can initial. Dropping the 2025 protest cases is the item that can be done without a constitutional amendment. An elected assembly with a chief minister cannot. The two sides have been in a high-powered committee process since 2021. Today's sitting will show whether the May minutes were a holding position or a text that Delhi is prepared to gazette.