Agartala: Election Commission of India (ECI) has asked Tripura administration to ensure voting of Bru (Reang) refugees in Mizoram lodging in six different camps of North Tripura in upcoming Mizoram assembly elections.
Officials here today said that ECI had decided to set up at least one polling station in each of the camps for the refugees lodging in Tripura territory and District Magistrate, North Tripura, was asked to monitor the electoral process.
“As per guideline, we are now verifying the electoral roll to ensure that no eligible voter should denied from voting right at least in the camps and administration is sincerely trying to facilitate the process of election along with their Mizoram counterpart,” the officials said.
They however, said following instruction of ECI, officials of Mizoram would visit the camps soon to verify the electoral roll and other related issues to ensure participation of the genuine voters in the election to be held on December 4.
Despite several directions from Union Home Ministry and tri-partite meeting only about 2000 refugees had gone back to Mizoram in past two years and more than 30,000 refugees were estimated to be in the camps because identification of inmates in four camps was not completed yet.
In previous assembly election, refugees had exercised their franchise for 40-member assembly house in Mizoram through postal ballot containing names and symbols of different political parties.
The refugees had initially boycotted the election, as postal ballots were printed as per the standard norms with the name not indicating the symbol of the candidates.
The refugees had argued, since most of the voters were illiterate, they could not identify the candidate and finally ECI had printed fresh ballot with symbol for them.
In last election, only 6,479 of the total refugees had received Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPIC), which were 8,061 in the draft electoral rolls of 2008. Moreover, about 8000 eligible voters of 35,000 refugees had been deprived of the voting rights in last election.
The refugees have been living at six camps in Kanchanpur subdivision of North Tripura since 1997 followed by the ethnic clash in Mamit district of Western Mizoram. (UNI)