A large number of agitators demonstrated in front of the office of the deputy commissioner of Kolasib on the Mizoram-Assam border Wednesday for allegedly enrolling 218 new Bru voters without conducting a hearing and physical verification.
Mizoram police said the agitators held a demonstration in front of the office of the DC, Arun T, since morning though he did not attend office.
This is the second time when people demonstrated against a poll official in the northeastern state.
The deputy commissioner of a district is also its returning officer for the assembly poll. Polling for the 40-member Mizoram Assembly is to be held on November 28.
Thousands of people had picketed Chief Electoral Officer S B Shashank's office on November 6 and November 7, demanding his removal.
Shashank was forced to leave the state in the face of demonstrations and the Election Commission sent two high-level teams on November 6 and November 9 to check the situation.
Also Read
The Kolasib DC has been accused by the All NGO Coordination Committee, the apex civil society and students' body, of enrolling 218 Brus lodged in six relief camps in Tripura without conducting a hearing and ascertaining whether they were bona fide residents of Mizoram.
The leaders of the Committee's Kolasib unit have alleged that Arun T was trying to conceal his actions and that his efforts resulted in enlisting of Bru voters who could be suspected of "not being bona fide residents of the state", the Committee sources said.
The Committee district unit on Monday demanded that the deputy commissioner leave Kolasib district on or before 5 PM Tuesday, they said.
The committee leaders, in a letter, accused the DC of lying and claimed the people of Kolasib district did not have confidence in him to conduct the election to the state assembly under his supervision.
Copies of the letter were sent to the state governor K Rajasekharan, chief secretary Arvind Ray and the CEO, the sources said.
The alleged actions of the DC had resulted in a mob attack on the office of the Kolasib deputy commissioner on the night of November 6 in which a few people, including a senior police official, were injured and police resorted to teargassing.
The Mizoram Joint CEO, Zorammuana, had issued an order to the Kolasib deputy commissioner on November 6, asking him to delete all the 218 names and conduct a public hearing in the presence of the village leaders and NGOs to ascertain the true identities of the newly-enrolled voters lodged in Bru relief camps, officials said.
The talks held between the Committee's Kolasib district unit and senior district police officials besides talks with the senior home department officials on Tuesday night had been inconclusive.
Meanwhile, a delegation of Mizoram Kohhran Hruaitute Committee (MKHC), a conglomerate of 16 major churches in the state led by Rev R Lalrinsanga, general secretary of the MKHC, has been sent by the state government to hold talks with the NGO Coordination Committee's Kolasib district unit today.
Civil societies in Mizoram have been demanding that Bru voters in the six relief camps in Tripura should exercise their franchise in Mizoram as laid down by law and committed by Election Commission of India in 2014.
They also demanded that all the eligible Bru voters should be enrolled in the voters' lists in Mizoram only after they return to Mizoram not "surreptitiously inside the relief camps".
The face-off between the CEO, Shashank, and the state government and civil society outfits took place after he complained against Mizoram's principal secretary (home), Lalninmawia Chuaungo, for allegedly interfering with the election process in the state.
Shashank had claimed that Chuaungo had played an active role in the revision of electoral roll of Bru refugees from Mizoram, who were forced to flee to Tripura after facing ethnic violence in 1997.
The complaint had led to the removal of Chuaungo, which irked the state government, political parties and civil society outfits in the state.
Massive protests were held against Chuaungo's removal outside the CEOs office in Aizawl and Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding Shashank's removal.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content