Mizoram BJP MLA K. Hrahmo urges UCC review, citing safeguards for Mizo women

A Bharatiya Janata Party legislator in Mizoram has taken a position at odds with the State's official stance on the Uniform Civil Code, calling for its provisions to be examined closely rather than rejected outright.

K. Hrahmo, who represents the Palak Assembly constituency in Siaha district in southern Mizoram, said the debate should be viewed through the lens of marriages between Mizo women and non-tribal men. He was speaking at a party programme at the BJP's office in Aizawl on Monday.

Mizoram has been among the States most firmly opposed to the UCC. In February 2023, the 40-member Assembly passed a resolution rejecting any move to implement it. Chief Minister Lalduhoma has recently described the code as a threat to indigenous customary laws and to minority rights.

Mr. Hrahmo argued that the code could instead offer added legal cover to Mizo women in mixed marriages. He said some non-tribal men residing in the State have more than one wife, and alleged that in certain cases men who already have wives elsewhere marry Mizo women to run businesses, abandoning them and their children when those ventures fail.

He pointed to the UCC's provisions on monogamy and the division of property after divorce as measures that could give such women greater protection.

According to the legislator, resistance to laws brought by the Centre frequently stems from political calculations or from a limited reading of what they contain. He noted that tribal communities have been kept outside the code's scope, and that comparable exemptions exist in States where it has been rolled out.

He further claimed that the Congress had painted the UCC as harmful for political advantage, stirring anxiety in Mizoram without a proper analysis of its clauses.

Mr. Hrahmo is one of the BJP's two MLAs in the State. The other, K. Beichhua, also hails from Siaha district.