Bru Settlers Will Get Voting Rights in Tripura

AGARTALA: Finally, the Bru people who resettled in Tripura would be able to exercise their franchise in the state. In yet another landmark judgement, the Tripura high court on Tuesday ordered the state election authorities to enroll their names in the electoral rolls.

The enrolment must be ensured just before the elections for the village councils which is expected to be conducted in November this year, the court ordered.

While disposing the petition on Tuesday, the bench of Justice Arindam Lodh asked the state election commission to complete the enrolment on urgent basis and then to hold the village council election in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council. TTAADC is preparing to hold the village council polls in the first week of November.

A group of Bru re settlers moved the High Court against the recent electoral roll where they were excluded. The High Court finally has passed the judgement and sent necessary instructions to state election authority.

The court clearly observed the fact that under the Quadripartite Agreement, the resettled Bru refugees would be enrolled in the new electoral rolls. It was also found that the Agreement paved the way for Brus to be treated as the citizens of Tripura with all rights to exercise their franchise.

The state has 15 designated locations to resettle the Bru refugees where 5009 persons have been enrolled out of around 21,703 refugees. Notably, the enrolment was done only in the area of full resettlement.

On the other hand, Mizoram has excluded over 1355 Bru voters from the recent electoral rolls citing their resettlement in Tripura.

A set of agreements were signed by the centre, the governments of Mizoram and Tripura and representatives of several Bru organisations to resettle Mizoram's Bru refugees in Tripura. The agreements paved the way for resettlement of 35,000 Bru refugees in Tripura.

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