Ladakh will not get statehood. Delhi is drafting a one-off elected body instead

Ladakh Chief Secretary Ashish Kundra said on Thursday, 10 September, that the Centre will not offer statehood and will not convert the Union territory into a UT with a legislature. What is on the table is a one-off body, described as a sui generis model under Article 371 of the Constitution, with legislative, executive and financial powers. The name of that body has not been fixed.

“Ladakh was never a State. It was part of J&K, and later it became a UT,” Kundra told The Hindu. “Aspiration of the people is to have legislative, executive, and financial powers. An agreement has been reached with the leadership here, a sui generis model, which does not exist anywhere in the country, will be crafted for Ladakh.” He added, “It is not going to be Statehood for sure or a UT with legislature.”

The Indian Express reported that the arrangement would need a special constitutional amendment and a two-thirds vote in Parliament, discussed in briefings as Article 371(K). That number is not yet law. It is the working label for a Ladakh-specific clause in the same family as the special provisions already written for other states under Article 371.

What local groups accepted, and what they did not

On 9 September Kundra met the Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance. Those two platforms speak for Leh and Kargil. Members agreed, he said, to direct elections from constituencies for the new UT-level body, rather than indirect election through the existing Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils. He handed them eight to ten questions on how power would split between the hill councils and the new tier. The next round is expected in October.

The architecture he sketched has three levels: panchayats at the base, the hill councils at district level, and the new body at the top. He also said the Sixth Schedule, which protects tribal areas in the Northeast, has limits in Ladakh’s case. The proposed 371 route is meant to lock land, resources, culture and environment into a constitutional text without using the Sixth Schedule template.

Civil society groups in the territory said they would protest if a concrete proposal does not arrive within a week, Scroll reported. That deadline sits inside the October calendar Kundra described. The gap is familiar: Delhi says a unique body is agreed in principle. Leh and Kargil want to see the clause, the seat map and the money powers before they retire the statehood demand.

Why this fight started in 2019

When Article 370 was revoked, Jammu and Kashmir lost its statehood and Ladakh was carved out as a Union territory without an assembly. The region has one Lok Sabha seat. Hill councils run local works but do not make territorial law. LAB and KDA have spent seven years asking for statehood, Sixth Schedule cover, and a larger say on land and projects. Job rules and domicile are part of the same argument. Young people in Leh have marched on those files in previous summers.

Kundra is on the official sub-committee that studies Ladakh’s demands. His Thursday briefing was an attempt to freeze the ceiling: no state, no standard UT legislature, yes to an elected territorial body with three kinds of power, name later, text later, Parliament later. That is less than statehood and more than the present lieutenant-governor-plus-councils setup.

The vote that would make it real

A 371 amendment is not an executive order. It needs Parliament. Until a bill is tabled, the October talks are negotiations about a structure that does not yet exist. The questions given to LAB and KDA are the real document of this week. They ask who controls land allotment, who signs off on hill-council budgets, and whether the new body can overrule a council. Those answers will decide if Leh and Kargil treat the model as a gain or as a renaming of central control.

For now the only firm negative is Kundra’s sentence: it is not going to be statehood. The firm positive is thinner. There will be direct elections to something. The something still needs a name, a map and a two-thirds majority.