Between 2009 and 2019, the Centre and the governments of Mizoram and Tripura attempted at least nine times to...
Digital Desk: The names of over 2,000 Bru voters were removed from Mizoram's electoral roll following their enrollment in the voter list of neighbouring Tripura, an election official said.
Mizoram's Joint Chief Electoral Officer, David Liansanglura Pachuau, said that the state election department has received over 3,000 deletion requests from its Tripura counterpart so far.
Till now, the names of 2,091 Bru voters have been removed from Mizoram's voter list, and the removal of the remaining voters is in progress, he said.
The official said that the Bru voters, who did not return to Mizoram during repatriations and resettled in Tripura, were electors in nine assembly constituencies in three districts of Mizoram.
Among the disenfranchised Bru voters, 1,643 hailed from Mamit, 187 from Kolasib, and 262 from the Lunglei district, he said.
He claimed that the deletion was carried out in accordance with requests made by the Tripura election department through the Electoral Roll Officer Net (ERONet).
Pachuau said they had encouraged their counterparts in Tripura to accelerate the inclusion of the Bru voters in the state's voter list as Mizoram is set for an assembly election next year.
Following ethnic tensions sparked by the 1997 assassination of a Mizo forest officer by Bru militants, thousands of Bru voters fled to Tripura.
Since then, they have spent more than 20 years living in transit camps.
The first repatriation attempt, in November 2009, was not only foiled by the murder of a Mizo villager by Bru militants, but it also provoked another round of exodus.
Between 2009 and 2019, the Centre and the governments of Mizoram and Tripura attempted at least nine times to repatriate the Bru tribals from Tripura.
On January 16, 2020, the Centre, the governments of Mizoram and Tripura, and leaders of many Bru organisations reached an agreement that permitted approximately 35,000 displaced Bru tribals who were unwilling to return to Mizoram during repatriation to settle permanently in Tripura.
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