Names of over 11,000 Bru voters, staying at six relief camps in Tripura, will be deleted from Mizoram’s voter list.

It has been necessitated following signing of a quadripartite agreement that gave the Brus right to permanently settle in Tripura, chief electoral officer of Mizoram, Ashish Kundra, said.

He added that the names of Bru voters would be legally deleted from the state electoral roll in accordance with the Representation of People Act, 1951.

“The process of deletion is likely to be undertaken during the next round of roll revision after the Bru relief camps in Tripura are closed down.”

Kundra said the Mizoram government would take approval the Election Commission and follow the procedure of the Act to remove the names of Bru voters from the state’s voter list.

According to him, the election department is yet to ascertain the actual number of Bru voters whose names will be deleted.

Kundra said the actual number of Bru voters whose names would be deleted could differ from the existing number in the last roll revision as many voters had returned to Mizoram during the final round of repatriation conducted in October last year.

He added that the number of Bru voters would be tallied with the Mizoram home department’s list.

Kundra expressed hope that the Bru voters, who failed to return to Mizoram before the quadripartite agreement on January 16, would be included in Tripura state voter list during the next round of roll revision.

According to the election officials, there were 12,081 Bru voters at six relief camps in Tripura in the last Lok Sabha elections held in April last year. During the last phase of repatriation conducted between October and November last year, 1,168 Bru people, including 453 children, belonging to 289 families, returned to Mizoram.

Election officials also said the total number of Bru voters whose names would be removed from the Mizoram’s electoral roll would be more than 11,000 although over 700 voters had returned during the last repatriation.

In what may be termed a “historic event,” a quadripartite agreement was signed among the Centre, the governments of Mizoram and Tripura and the Bru associations in New Delhi on January 16 to end over a two-decade-old Bru impasse.

According to the agreement, the Bru families, who continue to live at six relief camps after November 30, 2019, will be permanently settled in Tripura.

The Centre would provide rehabilitation and the Tripura government would provide settlement to the Bru refugees after which all the relief camps would be closed down, the agreement said.