45 per cent polling in Bru relief camps

A total 45 per cent votes were casted through postal ballot in the six Bru relief camps in north Tripura for the 40-member Mizoram Assembly today.
"The overall turn out has been 45 per cent. Polling is, however, still on at Naisinghpara camp. We have sought permission to extend polling in that camp for one more day. There are large queues still in other camps also," Mizoram Joint Chief Electoral Officer H Lalengmawia said.
Today was the second and last day of polling in the Bru relief camps where voters exercised their franchise through postal ballots.
There are a total 11,612 voters in the six camps where the Bru refugees have been lodged since they fled Mizoram in 1997.

Polling in Mizoram will be held on November 25.
State Chief Electoral Officer Ashwani Kumar told PTI that the polls in the camps were held under strict supervision of a special observer and seven others, and conducted by 86 polling officials including six nodal officers.

Three platoons of armed policemen were deployed to ensure peace and maintain law and order in the camps.
The polling party, comprising 74 desk officials and seven nodal officers, went to Tripura via Zomuantlang hamlet as Mizo Students Union organised a blockade in Langkhai river at Kanhmun village on Mizoram-Tripura border on Sunday.
The students were protesting against the conduct of election in the relief camps by sending polling officials from Mizoram as they alleged that the Brus had refused to return to the state despite several pleas by the Centre, state and civil societies.

Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath, during his recent Mizoram visit, had said that Bru voters lodged in the Tripura camps were allowed to exercise franchise in the camps in accordance with a Delhi High Court order of 1999.