Efforts are being made to remove the names of Bru voters who have permanently settled in Tripura but are still enlisted in the state electoral roll in Mizoram. Mizoram’s chief election officer, Madhup Vyas, has instructed district election officers to delete all such names by June 15. This instruction has come in alignment with the arrangements made by senior officials of the Election Commission of India during their stay in Aizawl, Mizoram’s capital city, in late May. However, the deletion requests being sent by the Tripura state election commission have been slow, resulting in only 4,554 names being removed until May 1.
The Mizoram election department has yet to delete 5,848 Bru names from the voters’ list. While 4,083 Bru voters’ names have been removed following requests from the Tripura state election commission, 471 names of Bru voters have been deleted based on scanned forms received from the Tripura SEC. In addition, at least 3,859 Bru voters’ names have been deleted from the three assembly constituencies of Hachhek, Mamit, and Dampa in Mamit district until May 1. The move comes after a quadripartite agreement was reached between the Ministry of Home Affairs and the states of Mizoram, Tripura, and the Centre, and representatives of displaced Bru families.