EC allows Mizo refugees in Tripura camps to vote

EC has decided that Bru voters lodged in Tripura refugee camps and enlisted in Mizoram voters list, would exercise their franchise inside Mizoram.

Election Commission has decided that 4,366 Bru voters, lodged in Tripura refugee camps and enlisted in Mizoram voters list, would exercise their franchise inside Mizoram and not in Tripura, state chief electoral officer (CEO) Lalmalsawma said in Aizawl on Friday.

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Lalmalsawma, who returned to Aizawl after attending a conference with the Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh in New Delhi on Friday told PTI that polling booths would be set up in Mizoram-Tripura border villages of Kanhmun and Tuipuibari where the Bru voters spreading over ten constituencies would cast their votes.

The New Delhi meeting on Thursday was attended by CEOs and police chiefs of both Mizoram and Tripura.

"Ten electronic voting machines each may have to be installed in the two polling stations," he said.

Meanwhile, the Save Mizoram Committee (SMC), comprising representatives of all major political parties and NGOs, said that it would not boycott the November 20 Mizoram Assembly polls as announced earlier.

"We will not boycott the elections this time, but see that the law takes its own course in ensuring that justice finally triumphs on the issue of giving franchise in Mizoram to those people belonging to Tripura," SMC leaders said.