Chorus of protest in Mizoram over ECI’s direction for electoral roll revision in Bru relief camps

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“The NGO co-ordination committee strongly urges the ECI to not conduct the electoral roll revision outside Mizoram,” the groups said in the joint statement, accusing the displaced Bru tribals’ camp leaders of “spreading lies against Mizos to gain comforts” and terming the ECI’s move as “brazen bias” for the Brus.

As reported earlier, displaced Bru leaders had previously written to the ECI about a news report in the Mizoram Post, an English daily, which quoted election officials as saying they have not received instructions to conduct summary revision of electoral rolls in the relief camps during an ongoing revision in the state of Mizoram.

The ECI forwarded the letter to Mizoram’s Election department on September 14 with instructions that the department should conduct summary revision of rolls in the relief camps as well.

Tens of thousands of Bru tribals fled Mizoram in 1997 following ethnic violence with the Mizos. They have lived in six relief camps in Mizoram since then, living on hand-outs with little avenues for employment, education or healthcare.

More than 1,600 families have however reported to authorities of their return to Mizoram since 2010, about two-thirds of them on their own and not through formal repatriation processes organised by the MHA, Mizoram and Tripura each year.

Thousands more have however continued to stay in the relief camps, partly because leaders in the camps have continuously rejected the repatriation package offered by the MHA, which includes almost Rs 1 lakh in cash, free rations for a year and land to build new houses in.

Their continued insistence on staying on in the camps has peeved Mizo groups who have protested that the Brus continue to have votes in Mizoram in spite of refusing to live in Mizoram for almost two decades.

Several groups had called a popular bandh-call during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, forcing the ECI to change the dates and promising to make sure Brus no longer cast votes for Mizoram elections in Tripura.

The MHA, Tripura and Mizoram had subsequently agreed they would make a final attempt to repatriate the Brus (more than 11,000 adults with votes plus numerous minors) who continue to live in the camps, agreeing that those who still refuse to return would be struck off the rolls and further rations to them stopped.