EC shifts names of tribals from Mizoram voters list to Tripura's rolls

The Election Commission has started deleting names of Reang tribals from the electoral list of Mizoram after the displaced tribals were settled in different districts of Tripura and will include these in the latter state's voters' list, officials said on Monday.

An official of the Mizoram Election Department said that in consultation with the Election Commission, names of 1,044 voters belonging to the Reang tribal community have so far been deleted in three districts of Mamit, Kolasib and Lunglei.

The deletion process was initiated after a communication from the Tripura Election Department and it would continue in near future.

Officials of Mizoram Election Department said in Aizawl that around 11,760 Reang tribal voters, including 5,750 females, who have been in seven camps in Tripura, are being resettled in the neighbouring state (Tripura), were earlier enrolled in different districts of Mizoram voter lists.

An official of the Tripura Election Department said that as per the agreement on January 2020, the names of the Reang tribals, whose names were removed from the Mizoram electoral lists, would be included in the voters' list of Tripura after following the stipulated process.

A total of 36,140 tribal migrants, including women and children, had sheltered in seven camps in northern Tripura since 1997 after the ethnic troubles began in Mizoram.

The Central, Mizoram and Tripura governments had made many attempts to repatriate the Reang tribals from Tripura to Mizoram in between 2009 and 2019 but the majority of the displaced people were reluctant to return to their home state unless their demands, including security and livelihood, were fulfilled.

However, only around 11,000 people had returned to Mizoram during the repatriation exercises.

Subsequently an agreement was signed in January 2020 between the Center, Tripura and Mizoram governments and the Reang tribal leaders to resettle the 36,140 tribal immigrants in Tripura.