New Delhi: Barely a day after the Ladakh administration scheduled elections to all eight Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils (LAHDCs) for December 4, the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) have accused the administration of “forcing upon” the polls on an unwilling population. The two bodies leading the region’s push for democratic representation say the timing, and the larger political context, leave them little choice but to prepare for protests.Chief Secretary Ashish Kundra announced the polls on Tuesday (November 10). They will shape eight elected councils for the first time, following the creation of six new districts in the Union Territory this year. Kundra’s reasoning is that a December vote would give the new councils three months to draft budgets that can be put to use next year, The Indian Express reported.Many residents leave the Union Territory in winter, and the groups say they would lose their vote. Ladakh MP Mohmad Haneefa Jan, who has written to Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena on the matter, said he had flagged this in person before the notification was issued.“I had met with the LG before the election was even notified. They were preparing to announce elections for December, but I had advised [them] that elections should be held in March or April since a large part of our population migrates away from Ladakh in the winter and so that every citizen can exercise their right to vote. Holding this election in December will deprive a lot of people of voting,” Haneefa said.Also read: Unhappy Over Delimitation, Ladakh Bodies Give Call to Boycott Upcoming LAHDC, Panchayat PollsHe added that sub-zero temperatures would be hard on voters and officials alike.In a video message, the LAB and KDA leadership called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi to “please intervene before we are forced to start peaceful but intense agitations to demonstrate our pain”. Sonam Wangchuk, a member of the LAB, appealed to the president and the country’s top leadership to “pay attention to Ladakh”, and said a tougher struggle lay ahead.“However, before things take that turn, we wanted to appeal to the people [of the country] to stand with us and help us find a way to address this situation,” Wangchuk said.He also drew a contrast with the pace of an inquiry into the September 24 violence in Leh last year, in which four people died in police firing after a protest turned violent.“While the judicial inquiry commission report on the September 24th incidents in Leh moves at snail’s pace, even after a year of the incidents and the talks on restoration of democracy have broken down, the Union Territory administration is moving at rocket speed to conduct some kind of ‘Council Elections’ here, apparently to have people of their choice installed to negotiate on democracy and safeguards here,” Wangchuk said.KDA co-chairman Sajad Kargili said the administration was more interested in image-building than in settling grievances.“I want to tell them, you are not just stealing votes but [also] our representation and you do not have this right,” he said.The election notice follows weeks of friction with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). At a press conference in Kargil on October 24, KDA co-chairman Asgar Ali Karbalai, a former legislator, said the KDA and LAB would not give up their demand for a legislature under the proposed Article 239 AAA, along with constitutional guarantees under Article 371. He compared the Union government’s methods to those of ancient Egyptian pharaohs.“The MHA and Ladakh administration have adopted the policy of pharaohs, by employing the tools of fear, intimidation and threats. They think it will force us to submit before them and say ‘yes, boss’. Don’t push the people of Ladakh to the wall. If the MHA does not return to the May 22 agenda, we will be forced to hit the streets, agitate and prepare to go to jail for our legitimate demands within the Constitution,” Karbalai said.On May 22, following a meeting of a sub-committee of the MHA, comprising representatives from LAB and KDA, along with ministry officials, the LAB-KDA combine said in a statement that a “model” would be chalked out by the Union government for administering the border region under which the “legislative, executive and financial powers” would be vested with the elected representatives of Ladakh through a “Union Territory-level legislative body”.“All bureaucrats of the Union Territory, including the chief secretary, will come under the executive head of the Union Territory-level elected body (proposed to be chief minister),” the LAB-KDA statement had said.