No voting arrangement for Manipur’s displaced people taking shelter in Mizoram till now: Official

Even as the nation gears up for the Lok Sabha polls slated for next month, thousands of Kuki-Zo people from Manipur displaced by ethnic violence and taking shelter in Mizoram, may not be able to exercise their franchise in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. A senior Mizoram’s election official said on Tuesday that there is no voting arrangement for the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) from Manipur taking shelter in Mizoram to cast their votes in the upcoming polls from the host state till now. “Discussion is going on among officials of Election Commission to enable the Manipuris displaced in different parts of the country to exercise their franchise in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. However, till now there is no plan to make special arrangements for the IDPs to cast their votes from Mizoram,” the official told PTI on condition of anonymity.

According to Mizoram home department’s data accessed by PTI, altogether 9,196 people, both adults and children, from Manipur are taking shelter in different parts of Mizoram as on Monday. Of 9,196 people, 1,340 live in 26 relief camps, while 7,856 live outside relief camps, the data said. Aizawl district hosts the highest number of Manipuris displaced people at 4,446, followed by Kolasib district at 2,213 and Saitual district at 1,275, it said. The Manipuris, who took shelter in Mizoram mostly belong to the minority Kuki-Zo community, who share ethnic ties with the Mizos. They have been taking shelter in the northeastern state since May last year due to the ongoing ethnic violence in the neighbouring state.

Recently, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar had said that the Election Commission has drawn up a scheme to allow displaced people in Manipur to cast their votes from their respective camps. Manipur’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Pradeep Kumar Jha had told reporters that the scheme is limited to the state’s territorial jurisdiction and nobody has approached them as regard to the Manipuris taking shelter in Mizoram. The Kuki-Zo people from Manipur are also displaced in Delhi and other cities across the country besides Mizoram, according to Churachandpur-based Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF).

In the past, the Election Commission had allowed the IDPs to exercise their franchise from the host states.When thousands of Mizoram’s Bru people fled to Tripura due to ethnic tension in 1997, they were allowed to exercise their franchise through postal ballots in Tripura’s relief camps until in 2018 when exclusive polling stations were set up at Kanhmun village on the Mizoram-Tripura border following opposition by Mizoram civil society groups that the Bru voters should not vote in the relief camps. The Kashmiri IDPs living in Delhi have been allowed to vote from Delhi.