A group of retired bureaucrats on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make it clear that his government does not support BJP president Amit Shah’s remarks on the Sabarimala verdict and a threat to the state government for implementing the verdict.

“We respectfully ask the head of the government, the Hon’ble PM, to counsel his party president as appropriate and to categorically delink the executive’s support of his cited public speech,” the retired civil servants said in a statement.

On October 27, speaking at Kannur in Kerala, Shah had warned chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan that “if you don’t stop this cycle of oppression, BJP workers will teach a lesson to your government. Your government will not last”.

Shah had also said that the Supreme Court should pronounce verdicts that could be implemented.

“Taken together, these two comments make for a scary reading that the president of the main ruling party at the centre is casting aspersions upon and questioning the lawful authority of the highest court of the land, asking the state government to refrain from implementing the court’s orders, and is explicitly threatening to bring it down by vigilante action of political workers in the streets by fuelling their religious sentiments,” the retired bureaucrats noted.

They urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of its contempt in such a blatant manner at a public forum and initiate necessary legal action.

Over the past year and a half, the retired bureaucrats and diplomats who have come together under the non-political banner Constitutional Conduct, have been making such interventions in the mainstream discourse through letters and statements on burning issues.

“There is also an implicit threat of the dismissal of the state government by the Union government,” the retired bureaucrats said in the statement.

They urged the Election Commission to take cognisance of Shah’s speech and seek necessary explanation from the BJP under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act. Under this provision, every political party has to include in its constitution/by-laws an undertaking that it “shall bear true faith allegiance to the Constitution of India…, and to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy, and would uphold the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India”.

The signatories to the statement said Shah’s speech amounted to “a gross constitutional misconduct” and goes against Modi’s own advocacy of federalism, both as chief minister and in his current position.

“The cited content of the public speech of the powerful president of the ruling party is as worrying as it is inexplicable even in the present times when political discourse touches a new low every day,” the statement said.