GUWAHATI: The Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples’ Forum will submit a proposal to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday requesting the poll panel to allow voters of the community two days to exercise their franchise in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
The forum had on March 15 submitted a memorandum to the Union ministry of home affairs requesting the latter for setting up polling booths inside the relief camps for the parliamentary elections.
“However till today we have not received any response to our submission. According to their decision the polling booths have been arranged in Kanhmun like last year. But we will send a letter to the ECI on Tuesday requesting for two days to allow our people to go there and vote,” Bruno Msha, the general secretary of the Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples’ Forum, told The Shillong Times on Monday.
Several voters lodged in the seven Bru relief camps in Tripura had to experience hardships and trouble commuting to the special polling booth at Kanhmun (on the Tripura-Mizoram border) to cast their votes in the November 28 Assembly election last year. About 35,000 people from the community are currently living in the camps in north Tripura
Election to the lone Lok Sabha seat in Mizoram will be held on April 11.
Even as a final word from the ECI on the venue of the polling booth is being awaited, NGOs in Mizoram are opposed to the idea of setting up booths in the camps in Tripura.