Over 6,000 Bru voters struck off Mizoram’s electoral rolls

The State Election Commission has removed 6,000 Bru voters from Mizoram’s voter list, officials in Aizawl said on Wednesday (July 19). The Bru voters’ names from nine constituencies have been deleted from the state voter list due to their settlement in Tripura following the agreement in 2020, they said.

The names of more than 6,000 Bru voters from nine assembly constituencies in three districts – Mamit, Kolasib and Lunglei – have been deleted during the process, officials said.

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They said that more than 4,900 Bru voters names were deleted from the electoral rolls from three assembly constituencies – Mamit, Dampa and Hachhek. Kolasib district officials said that 948 names of Bru voters, who have settled permanently in Tripura have been deleted from the electoral rolls in Kolasib, Serlui and Tuirial assembly constituencies.

South Mizoram’s Lunglei district officials said that 334 names of Bru voters have been deleted from the electoral rolls in Lunglei South, Thorang and West Tuipui assembly seats. Officials said that the final figure of Bru voters will be ascertained when the draft electoral roll is published on August 2.

The final publication of the electoral roll in the current revision is scheduled to be published on October 4.

Earlier, receipt of corresponding requests for deletion from the Tripura State Election Commission through ERONet was going on at a snail’s pace, prompting the Mizoram Election Commission to take up the issue of deletion of Bru voters on its own after Madhup Vyas took over as the state chief electoral officer recently.

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Thousands of Bru voters had fled to Tripura following ethnic tension triggered by the murder of a Mizo forest officer by the erstwhile Bru militants in 1997. Since then they have been living in transit camps for more than two decades.

The Centre and governments of Mizoram and Tripura had made at least nine attempts to repatriate the Bru tribals from Tripura between 2009 and 2019.

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.

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(With inputs from agencies)