Wangchuk appeals to president against Ladakh LG’s smear campaign

• At an India Today conclave in Mumbai in October the LG belittled Wangchuk’s credentials and work and took credit for five dams built on the Indus with rocks and boulders. Wangchuk describes the dams as an ecological disaster in the making

• A ‘sting operation’ conducted by Wangchuk’s lawyers recorded an audio conversation with the owner of a content creating company who confirmed that the company was working with the ‘LG’s team’ to create content to defame Wangchuk and praise and promote the LG

• He had brought the material to the notice of the Director, Intelligence Bureau who stopped responding after a few exchanges, Wangchuk claims, forcing him to go public

The simmering differences between Ladakh Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena and climate activist and educationist Sonam Wangchuk have now spilled into the open.

Speaking at the India Today Conclave Mumbai 2026 on 10 October, Saxena questioned Wangchuk’s environmental credentials, asking what he had done for Ladakh and how many trees he had planted. He said Wangchuk’s responses to his questions were “not convincing”.

Saxena also highlighted his administration’s water conservation initiatives, claiming that five rock check dams had already been built using riverbed stones without concrete or steel. The structures, he said, were aimed at improving water storage and irrigation in the region.

Stung by the public rebuke, Wangchuk hit back with a statement saying that the check dams had forced the water of the Indus to erode the banks and cut through the soft soil. If the exercise continues, he added, it would lead to an ecological disaster in the long run.

The LG appears to have retaliated by ordering HIAL to stop the operation of the Desert Flower school till formal approvals are given and the land lease of HIAL is renewed. The Ladakh administration has asked HIAL to ensure that nobody with any political affiliation is included in the Managing Committee of the school. While HIAL has written back saying that nobody in the committee has any affiliation with any political party, the objection reeks of double standards as BJP leaders and the RSS are deeply engaged in running schools and colleges across the country.

The Desert Flower school, a part of HIAL, has been three years in the making and the kindergarten classes were to begin last year. Teachers had been selected and parents had admitted thir children. The school was delayed however due to agitations for statehood and 6^th Schedule. At a press conference on Saturday, 7 November Geetanjali Angmo, Wangchuk’s wife and administrator at HIAL, alleged that at least five letters had been sent to the LG administration for issuing the formal approval besides making 50 visits and countless phone calls.

The director of school education, she said, had informed that before the approval HIAL needed a No Objection Certificate from the DC. The DC, however, denied that any NOC was required after he was approached in September 2026. Yet, on 2 November, she said, a notice was served on HIAL to stop the classes. The notice, she sarcastically pointed out, was prepared and signed on a Sunday, 1 November and was circulated to the media before it was served.

Similarly, the renewal of land lease of HIAL has also been delayed by the administration along with the lease of other institutions. Tired of waiting, HIAL filed a petition to the Jammu Bench of the High Court in September 2026 and obtained a stay. Yes, it is sub judice which means that the Government too cannot intervene.

Barely able to conceal her anger, Angmo accused the LG of presiding over an incompetent administration. While bureaucrats were meant to facilitate projects designed to help people, she alleged, they in Ladakh were being used to put up obstacles. The Desert Flower school, like HIAL, she pointed out, is run by a not-for-profit entity. “I challenge the government to set up a school in five years to match the desert Flower School,” she added defiantly.       

The LG, said Wangchuk scathingly, was pursuing highly unpopular and even anti-people policies. While the administration had been forced to backtrack on its liquor policy in the face of public protests, Wangchuk pointed out that the number of NOCs required for liquor bars was reduced from 16 to six by the LG. All his policies are geared to the corporatisation of Ladakh, he alleged. Ladakh had been turned into a police state, he says in the video he posted on 7 November 2026.  

“I am being continuously witch-hunted and defamed and our schools are being harassed by the LG Administration in Ladakh. But this sting operation by our lawyers establishes that the LG Administration is directly involved in illegal smear campaigns (& much more). Much more has come to us from the Raj-Niwas/ Lok-Niwas but we are releasing just some excepts for now. I tried very much to avoid this, thinking it may damage the nation's dignity & morale; hence I first shared the material with the chief of IB for intervention, but unfortunately after a few exchanges he too stopped responding... So, with a heavy heart I am sharing this with the nation as we must stop the LG from playing like an infant in the ecologically and strategically sensitive border region of India,” he said while sharing the video on X.

“There is a lot of raita spread on internet/news about our school. India's Parliamentary Committee on Education recommended HIAL to be replicated all over India. Victoria & Albert Museum in London has a permanent display on it. The Time magazine featured its projects in TIME 100 Climate solutions. And yet...they want it closed,” he tweeted in another post.