Agartala: The Mizoram Bru Displaced People’s Forum (MBDPF) has sought arrangements of polling booths in all the seven Bru relief camps of North Tripura district so that they could exercise their franchise in the forthcoming parliamentary elections scheduled to be held on April 9 next without any trouble.
In a memorandum addressed to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ashutosh Jindal, the MBDPF mentioned only few voters cast their votes in the Assembly poll of Mizoram in 2003.
Thousands of Bru voters from the relief camps had failed to exercise their franchise due to time constraint and improper arrangement made by the Mizoram government in the last elections.
The voters, especially women with their suckling babies, old aged men suffered a lot as no arrangement of food, drinking water and shed was made for them.
The Forum also alleged that the communal based NGOs of Mizoram vehemently opposed to set up polling booths in relief camps in Tripura during the upcoming Parliamentary election and virtually delete their names from the existing Electoral Roll.
Knowing this suffering of the Bru returnees, the displaced Brus are scared to proceed towards Mizoram unless both the Central and the state government of Mizoram take favorable steps to resolve few demands – allotment of land to every family, granting compensation of at least Rs. 1.5 lakhs, provision of free rations for at least 2 years, etc. which have already been submitted to both Central and state government of Mizoram by MBDPF.
Despite the strong objection made by communal based NGOs of Mizoram, the EVM were arranged at Kanhmun and Tuipuibari in Mizoram for the displaced Bru voters in the Assembly Election of Mizoram held in 2003.
