AIZAWL: Mizoram election officials would hold a meeting with their Tripura counterparts likely in April to expedite the deletion of names of Mizoram Bru voters, who have permanently settled in the neighbouring state, from the state voters’ list, a senior election official said.
Mizoram Joint chief electoral officer (CEO) David Liansanglura Pachau said that they are planning to travel to Tripura in April to hold talks with Tripura election officials to sort out the Bru voters imbroglio and ensure speedy deletion of the Bru voter names from Mizoram electoral roll.
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“We are planning to go to Tripura and hold a meeting with Tripura election officials over Bru voters at the earliest likely in April. We will communicate and inform our proposed visit to the neighbouring state this week,” Pachuau said.
He said that the Mizoram government is making massive efforts to delete names of Bru voters enrolled in the state voters’ list before the state assembly polls due later this year.
The Bru voters have settled permanently in Tripura.
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Pachuau, who is taking charge as Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), said that the process of deletion is moving at a snail’s pace as many Bru voters had lost their Mizoram voter identity cards and no longer remember which constituencies they belonged to.
“We are planning to go with election officers of the district concerned. We will take a list of the Bru voters in Mizoram electoral roll and discuss the matter with Tripura officials to expedite the deletion process,” he said.
According to Pachuau, the Mizoram election department has so far deleted names of 4318 Bru voters, who have settled permanently in neighboring Tripura, from the state voters list.
The Bru voters’ names were deleted based on corresponding deletion requests and scanned forms received from Tripura state election commission, he said.
The Bru voters hailed from nine assembly constituencies in three districts- Lunglei, Kolasib and Mamit, he said.
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Names of 6084 Bru voters are yet to be deleted from Mizoram voter list, he added.
Fearing ethnic tension triggered by the murder a Mizo forest official by Bru militants in 1997, thousands of Brus had fled to Tripura after the killing.
Since then they have been living in transit camps in Tripura.
Although the Centre and governments of Mizoram and Tripura made at least 9 attempts to repatriate the Bru tribals from Tripura between 2009 and 2019, only a few had returned to Mizoram during the exercise.
On January 16, 2020 the Centre, governments of Mizoram and Tripura and representatives of several Bru organisations had signed an agreement, according to which over 35,000 displaced Bru tribals, who were reluctant to return to Mizoram during repatriation, were allowed to re-settle permanently in Tripura.