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Journalism of Courage
A bandh in Mizoram that started at 5 am Monday prevented officials from reporting to their posts for election duty for Lok Sabha polls scheduled for April 9 and sent the government into hurried negotiations to defuse the crisis.
Five mass-based voluntary organisations imposed the 72-hour bandh (designed to stretch till April 9) in protest against the Election Commission of India for allowing over 11,000 displaced Bru tribals in neighbouring Tripura to cast postal ballots for Mizoram’s lone Lok Sabha seat.
They demanded that votes of displaced Brus — polled in six relief camps in Tripura between April 1 and 3 and which will be counted in Trupura — be discarded and fresh polls held within Mizoram.
More than 5,000 Bru families fled Mizoram in 1997 following ethnic violence and of them 1,040 families have returned home through a repatriation process that began in 2010. The remaining families have over 11,000 eligible voters. Bandh supporters said displaced Bru voters “refused” to be repatriated and should not be allowed to vote for Mizoram’s Lok Sabha seat.
On Monday, none of the poll officials turned up at designated meeting point in capital Aizawl from where they were to board vehicles to their respective posts.
In western Mamit town, poll officials reportedly assembled at the District Commissioner’s office but were stuck with bandh supporters preventing them from leaving for their posts.
Election officials and police said the Mizoram Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has asked the ECI to provide 60 to 70 companies of paramilitary forces.
Top sources said the ECI has conveyed to Mizoram Chief Secretary some conditions for negotiations, including a proposition that polls be postponed to April 15 and an ultimatum to displaced Bru voters to return to Mizoram within six months or be removed from Mizoram’s electoral rolls.
Leaders of the five organisations were holding negotiations with the Mizoram chief secretary and poll officials at the time of filing this report but said no breakthrough has been achieved.
