Communist Party of India (Marxist) parliamentarian John Brittas was summoned by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat after a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader complained to Rajya Sabha Chairman and Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar that an article written by the Kerala MP in The Indian Express criticising Union Home Minister Amit Shah is ‘seditious’. Though the MP had given an explanation orally, he was asked to give the same in writing. As per reports, the complaint was made by Kerala BJP general secretary P Sudheer.

Brittas’s article was regarding the controversial speech made by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in February 2023 in coastal Karnataka. “There is Kerala in your neighbourhood. I do not wish to say more,” Amit Shah had warned.

As a response to this statement, John Brittas in an article written the same month hinted that Amit Shah might not know the “section 153 A of IPC, which deals with “promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.”

Brittas, in his column, also went on to say that Amit Shah is desperate and is attempting to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra by replacing the Constitution with the Manu Smriti.  “Incidentally, Shah had earlier threatened to pull down the Left government in Kerala. More than the geographical significance, it is the idea of Kerala that irks the BJP,” the journalist-turned-politician wrote.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had also demanded an explanation over Amit Shah’s remarks in Mangaluru.