# Senior Leh Leaders Urge Restraint on Fresh Ladakh Marches, Ask Bodies to Stick to May 2025 Understanding

> With a Kargil to Leh padyatra looming later this month, veteran Leh leaders including former MP Thupstan Chhewang are pressing the Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance to build on the progress reached with the Centre last year rather than return to the streets.

- Source: India Max
- Canonical URL: https://indiamax.net/article/senior-leh-leaders-urge-restraint-on-fresh-ladakh-marches-ask-bodies-to-stick-to-may-2025-understanding
- Author: India Max Staff
- Section: Politics
- Published: 2026-09-15T13:34:02.888Z
- Updated: 2026-09-15T13:34:02.888Z
- Tags: Ladakh, Leh, Kargil, Statehood
- Hindi edition: https://indiamax.net/hi/article/senior-leh-leaders-urge-restraint-on-fresh-ladakh-marches-ask-bodies-to-stick-to-may-2025-understanding

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Senior leaders in Leh have voiced concern over plans for a fresh round of street protests in Ladakh, urging both the Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance to hold to the terms of the understanding the two groups reached with the Centre in May 2025 rather than risk unravelling that progress through renewed agitation.

Former Member of Parliament Thupstan Chhewang, who led the Leh Apex Body until stepping down last year, has been among the most vocal in making that case. He described the September 9 talks between Ladakh representatives and a Union Home Ministry sub-committee as fruitful, arguing that real progress had been made toward an elected Union Territory level body, and said the delay in finalising matters stemmed less from the Home Ministry and more from differences within the Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance over how to sequence the remaining steps.

That assessment put Chhewang at odds with the joint position taken by the Leh Apex Body and Kargil Democratic Alliance, which described the September 9 meeting as having produced nothing new, a split that reflects the wider divide currently running through Ladakh's civil society leadership over whether to keep negotiating quietly or return to public mobilisation.

The disagreement matters because organisers have kept alive the threat of a six day padyatra running from September 19 to 24, timed to end in Leh alongside a candlelight vigil marking one year since the September 2025 firing that killed four civilians and injured around 80 during earlier protests in the town. Leaders behind the march have said it will proceed if no written assurance on Ladakh's four point agenda, including statehood and Sixth Schedule protections, arrives within a set window.

Chhewang has argued that if some groups feel agitation is still necessary, it would be better directed toward Kargil, which he said carries a stronger stake in certain outstanding demands, rather than reopening the kind of large scale mobilisation in Leh that preceded last year's violence. The coming days are likely to determine whether Ladakh's leadership can hold the line on dialogue or whether the padyatra goes ahead as planned.

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Originally published by India Max. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://indiamax.net/article/senior-leh-leaders-urge-restraint-on-fresh-ladakh-marches-ask-bodies-to-stick-to-may-2025-understanding.