Newmai News Network
AIZAWL, April 14
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Election Commission of India (ECI) will soon make provision for removal of Bru voters from Mizoram electoral roll.
According to Mizoram chief minister Lal Thanhawla, the Election Commission of India (ECI) will take initiative any day to remove the displaced Brus from Mizoram electoral roll.
Lal Thanhawla told reporters that displaced Bru voters camping at six transit camps in Tripura who are reluctant to return to their respective places in Mizoram would be permanently removed from electoral roll. “The ECI will make a provision for deletion of Bru voters who do not return to Mizoram within three months counting from May 16”, the chief minister of Mizoram further said.
“For several times appeals were made to the ECI to remove those Bru voters from the electoral roll who obstinately continue to reside at refugee camps in Tripura despite repeated calls to return to their places in Mizoram,” stated Lal Thanhawla, adding, “If P Chidambaram had still been the Union Home Minister, they (Bru) would have not casted votes even in the las assembly election”.
According to the Chief Minister, repatriation for Brus camping at refugee camps in Tripura has been opened since 2007. “We did not force them to leave the state. But asked them to return for a number of times and we may need to shout for their return in the future,” he said.He also said that the government of Mizoram would not feel regret if the Bru refugees do not return to Mizoram.
Mention may be made here that the Lok Sabha election in Mizoram was held on April 11 instead of April 9 following the 72-hour bandh called by various civil society organisations of the state against the Brus camping in Tripura refugee camps to cast vote in Mizoram.
Irked by the ECI’s green signal for Brus to vote, five influential civil society organisations in Mizoram had agitated under the aegis of the Co-ordination Committee five organisations of Young Mizo Association (YMA), MUP, MHIP, Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP) and Mizo Students Union (MSU) by imposing the state-wide total bandh for 72 hour starting from 5 am of April 7.
In the past few months, these civil society organisations of Mizoram have been threatening to boycott the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in the state if the Election Commission of India (ECI)does not entertain to their demand to disallow the Brus camped in Tripura from voting in Mizoram in the forthcoming Lok Sabha poll.
In January, Mizo Students’ Union (MSU) had lodged a complaint to Union Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde regarding the troubles and obnoxious acts created by Bru community against the Mizos.
The MSU had also urged the Election Commission of Indis (ECI) not to allow the Brus residing outside Mizoram to cast their votes in Mizoram.
Also on January 23, MSU had re-submitted a petition to Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath requesting him to take immediate step to disallow those Bru voters who continue to live outside Mizoram deliberately to cast their votes in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections in Mizoram.
It is worth mentioning here that the relationship between the Mizos and the Brus has not been going well in the past 15 years.
Hundreds of Brus had left Mizoram in 1997 and in 2009. The first case was triggered when Bru militants murdered two Mizos who were forest guards on October 21, 1997. The second case happened after a 17-year-old Mizo boy was killed by the Brus near Bungthuam village on November 13, 2009. When the Bru left Mizoram they had driven out some Mizos in villages of Sakhan Hill Range in Tripura like Sakhan Serhmun, Sakhan Tlangsang, Sakhan Tualsen and Upper Dosda which had kicked up much ruckus in Mizoram then.
Meanwhile, a couple of years ago, head count conducted by the MBDPF found that there had been 31,703 Brus in the relief camps belonging to 5,448 families who were bona fide residents of Mizoram.
The repatriation of the 1997 batch of Bru refugees was underway until it stalled by the November 13 killing.
In the year 2011, conglomeration of major NGOs in Mizoram had submitted a joint memorandum to the then Union Home minister P Chidambaram to rehabilitate displaced
Mizos in Tripura and stall the ongoing repatriation of Brus from Tripura to Mizoram. The memorandum was signed by representatives of four large NGOs in the state--the Young Mizo Association (YMA), the MZP, the Mizoram Upa Pawl (MUP) or elders association and the Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl (MHIP) or the women’s federation and four political parties.
The memorandum had mentioned that more than 80 Mizo families displaced from Tripura’s Sakhan Hill range in 1998 after being threatened by Bru militants should be adequately rehabilitated by the Centre, otherwise, the repatriation of Bru refugees from Tripura relief camps should not be allowed.
