Mizoram government delete names of over 2,000 Bru voters from electoral rolls

Officials of the Mizoram election department have deleted the names of as many as 2,091 Bru voters after they were enrolled in the Tripura electoral rolls.

Officials said that the state election department had so far received 3,021 Bru voters' names from the Tripura state election commission with requests for deletion to date. 

"Of these, we have deleted 1,905 names while 186 names were also deleted based on scanned forms received from Tripura state election commission," officials said. 

Of 2,595 deletion requests received by Mamit district officials, only 1,480 names of Bru voters were deleted, said the state election commission official.

Further, Kolasib district and south Mizoram's Lunglei district officials have deleted all the names received from Tripura. 

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Notably, the enrolment of Bru voters in Tripura electoral rolls slowed down due to the process of revision of electoral rolls. 

The source stated the Bru voters, who migrated to Tripura after not returning to Mizoram during repatriations, were electors of nine assembly seats in three districts of Mizoram.

Following ethnic hostilities sparked by the death of a Mizo forest officer by Bru militants in 1997, thousands of Bru voters moved to Tripura. They have spent more than two decades in transit camps since then.

The initial repatriation effort, in November 2009, was not only thwarted by the Bru militants' murder of a Mizo villager, but it also provoked another round of departure.

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 organizations reached an agreement that permitted approximately 35,000 displaced Bru tribals who were unwilling to return to Mizoram during repatriation to reside permanently in Tripura.