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Prior to this the Election Commission of India had to set up special polling stations on Tripura-Mizoram boundary to facilitate voting of the eligible displaced voters. Bru or Reang refugees

are a primitive minority tribe and the second most populous tribe after Tripuris in Tripura. Brus are a designated Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG). As the demographic goes, 95%

of households in Mizoram have household heads who belong to a scheduled tribe and 3% belong to scheduled caste, as per the National Family and Health Survey, 2019-2021. However, Brus are a

small minority within STs. The Brus are spread across Tripura, Mizoram and southern Assam. In Mizoram, they are scattered in Kolasib, Lunglei and Mamit districts. While many Brus of Assam

and Tripura are Hindu, the Brus of Mizoram converted to Christianity over the years. Most Brus who are residing in Tripura today have suffered over two decades of internal displacement from

Mizoram. Things went south when the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) killed a Mizo forest official in October 1997. The retaliatory ethnic violence saw more than thousands of Brus

fleeing to Tripura. Approximately 30,000 (5,000 families) Bru migrants were given shelter in six relief camps set-up in Kanchanpur district of North Tripura. Brus had also demanded for an

Autonomous District Council (ADC), under the 6th Schedule of the Constitution, in western Mizoram, where they were the more dominant lot, outnumbering the ethnic Mizo population. The Centre

and the two state governments of Mizoram and Tripura have made nine attempts from 1997 to 2018 to facilitate the community's repatriation. * The repatriation of Brus to Mizoram was

started in 2010 and till 2014. * Approximately 1,622 Bru families (8,573 people) were repatriated in six batches and resettled in Mizoram. * Protests by Mizo NGOs, primarily the Young Mizo

Association, stalled the process in 2011, 2012 and 2015. * The Bru refugees started demanding relief on par with what is given to Kashmiri Pandits and Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. * The Centre

spent close to ₹500 crore for relief and rehabilitation until the last peace deal was brokered over three years since 2015. * In July 2018, a final package of ₹435 crore was granted and it

involved Mizo NGOs besides the governments concerned.