NEW DELHI: BJP has once again cooked up a surprise in the candidate announcement in the Lok Sabha polls. This time in Ladakh, sitting MP Jamyang Tsering Namgyal has been dropped for Tashi Gyalson, former general secretary of the party in Ladakh unit. Tashi Gyalson was the councilor of Lingshet constituency and the chairman of the 6th Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) in 2020.

In 2019, Jamyang Tsering Namgyal's speech in the Lok Sabha was much noticed. Jamyang was one of the eight MPs who had lunch with the Prime Minister this past February. Kollam MP NK Premachandran from Kerala was also present at the lunch.

Tashi Gyalson joined the BJP after the collapse of the BJP-PDP government in Jammu and Kashmir. Earlier he was a PDP worker.

A section of leaders in Ladakh are reportedly against the unexpected candidate announcement and have threatened to resign from the party. There is a demand from some quarters that the 38-year-old Namgyal should contest from Ladakh as an independent. The party has good support in Kargil and Leh regions. There is concern that this will be lost following the nomination of Tashi due to his PDP background.