The Election Commission will set up 15 polling stations at Kanhmun village in Mamit district of Mizoram for Bru voters lodged in six relief camps in North Tripura district.

State chief electoral officer Ashis Kundra told reporters on Monday the Election Commission had on Saturday asked him to arrange special polling stations for the Bru voters.

Of these, nine will be for the Bru voters of Mamit district and three each for Lunglei and Kolasib districts of Mizoram, Kundra said.

The Brus cast their votes at the temporary polling stations at Kanhmun village during the Assembly elections on November 28 last year.

Kundra said nearly 12,000 Bru voters from the relief camps in North Tripura will exercise their franchise on April 11. He added that he was in touch with the Tripura chief electoral officer regarding the arrangement of transportation for the Bru voters.

A team will go to Tripura soon to discuss the arrangements.

Meanwhile, the NGO Coordination Committee, a conglomerate of major civil society groups and student organisations, has threatened to boycott the polls unless special arrangements were made for the Bru voters to cast their votes in the respective polling stations in Mizoram.

Kundra said Aizawl district deputy commission Lalngaihsaka, the returning officer for the Lok Sabha polls, held a meeting with civil society groups on Monday.

They told the returning officer that they were still opposed to setting up of special polling stations for Bru voters.

Kundra said though decent debate and discussion are a part of democracy, to stop the democratic process by boycotting election is not healthy. He said there were other means of expressing differences and stalling the democratic process was not going to serve anybody’s purpose.

“I appeal to the civil society groups to reconsider their decision and I am hopeful that in the larger interest of preserving and strengthening democracy in the state, there will be reconsideration of the matter,” he added. The chief electoral officer said special arrangements have been made for the Bru voters since the last Assembly elections as the Election Commission had taken a very conscious decision that the Bru community should vote within Mizoram.

The decision was made after consultation with the civil society groups, he added.

Kundra also said asking the Bru voters to travel to far-flung places to their respective polling stations from Tripura is not practicable as they have to go two days in advance.

Filing of nomination papers began on Monday.

Kundra said six companies of central paramilitary forces would be deployed in the state, assisted by state police.

Six companies of the central armed police force will be deployed during the Lok Sabha polls as against 40 companies during the Assembly elections, he said.