Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga told the BBC on Monday that he will not share the stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the campaign for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.

Assembly elections in the northeastern state will be held on November 7. The prime minister is likely to visit Mamit town on October 30, along with Bharatiya Janata Party National President JP Nadda and party leaders Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, PTI reported.

Despite being a part of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance, Zoramthanga told the BBC in an interview that it would not be good for his party, the Mizo National Front, to “show sympathy towards the BJP at this point in time”, referring to the ongoing conflict in Manipur.

“The people of Mizoram are all Christians,” he said. “When the Meities burned hundreds of churches in Manipur, they [Mizos] were totally against it.”

The chief minister said that it would be better if the prime minister “shares the platform by himself, and I take the stage separately by myself”.

He said that his party joined the North East Democratic Alliance and is an ally of the National Democratic Alliance at the Centre because it is against the Congress.

Zoramthanga has been publicly batting for the unification of all Mizo-inhabited areas into a single administrative unit since violence broke out in Manipur in May. The integration, he told journalists in July, was the main goal of the Mizo National Front when it was founded in 1961.

Ethnic conflict between the Kuki and Meitei communities in Manipur has resulted in the deaths of over 200 people since early May. Nearly 60,000 persons have been forced to flee their homes.

Disagreements with NDA

In July, Zoramthanga said that while the Mizo National Front is part of the National Democratic Alliance, it does not subscribe to all its policies. He said that neither he nor his party were afraid of the government at the Centre.

“The MNF and the Bharatiya Janata Party work together for development, but will not advocate whatever they [BJP] say,” he had said.

He also said that his party will quit the National Democratic Alliance if a Uniform Civil Code is imposed in Mizoram.

The Central government has been preparing the ground for the implementation of the code aimed at formulating a common set of personal laws for all communities. Some state governments run by the BJP have even formed committees to chalk out modalities of the code.

However, in the North East, a uniform civil code would mean doing away with the community-specific personal laws that currently govern matters such as marriage, divorce, alimony, child custody and inheritance.

Also read: Explained: Why some North East states are opposing the Uniform Civil Code