Over 2,000 Bru voters removed from Mizoram’s electoral roll | Popgen Tech

A view of Naisingpara refugee camp in Kanchanpur subdivision of Tripura. File | Photo credit: Ritu Raj Konwar

The names of more than 2,000 Bru voters were deleted from the electoral roll of Mizoram after their registration in the electoral roll of neighboring Tripura, an election official said.

Mizoram Joint Chief Electoral Officer David Liansanglura Pachuau said the state Election Department has received requests to delete more than 3,000 names from its Tripura counterpart so far.

In this, the names of 2,091 Bru voters have been removed from the voter list of Mizoram till date and deletion of the remaining voters is underway, he said.

The official said that the Bru voters, who were resettled in Tripura after not returning to Mizoram during their repatriation, were voters in nine Assembly constituencies in three districts of Mizoram.

Among the ineligible Bru voters, 1,643 are from Mamit, 187 from Kolasib and 262 from Lunglei district, he said.

He said the deletion was done as per the request sent by Tripura election department through Electoral Roll Officer Net (ERONet).

Mr. Pachuau said that they have asked their counterparts in Tripura to speed up the registration of Bru voters in the State electoral roll as Mizoram has Assembly elections next year.

Thousands of Bru voters fled to Tripura after ethnic tensions sparked by the killing of a Mizo forest officer by Bru militants in 1997.

Since then, they have been living in transit camps for more than two decades.

The first repatriation attempt in November 2009 not only resulted in the massacre of a Mizo village by Bru militants, but also triggered another round of exodus.

The Center and the governments of Mizoram and Tripura made at least nine attempts between 2009 and 2019 to repatriate the Bru tribes to Tripura.

On 16 January 2020, the Centre, the governments of Mizoram and Tripura and representatives of various Bru organizations signed an agreement, according to which more than 35,000 displaced Bru tribes, who were reluctant to return to Mizoram during repatriation, were allowed to resettle fully go to Tripura. .