Toru Nakakita, a veteran radio host at NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster, has quit after he was told not to discuss the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Station executives say they feared his comments could affect voting behavior in the upcoming vote to elect Tokyo’s governor on February 9.

Nakakita had been hosting the Business Outlook segment on Radio Asa Ichiban for the last two decades, Japan Times reported.

According to The Asahi Shimbun daily, Nakakita planned to say that “damages to be paid in the wake of the 2011 nuclear plant diaster are extraordinarily high.”

While Nakakita insisted that the nuclear debate was timely, NHK claimed it simply wanted the discussion to be balanced.

Not satisfied with the broadcaster’s official explanation, Nakakita told Japan Times: “The media should choose various issues especially during the campaign. If they don’t, voters will go to the polls with no information to base their judgements on.”

Tensions grew earlier this month when a staunch opponent of nuclear power, former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, joined the Tokyo governor’s race. He is standing against Yoichi Masuzoe, backed by the current prime minister’s party, who supports the restarting of Japan’s many nuclear plants following the disaster.

Several of them were shut down following the 2011 earthquake and Tsunami damaged the Fukushima nuclear power station.

Nuclear power has been a controversial topic in the Japanese media ever since.