On Tuesday (December 7), an Ahmedabad court remanded Trinamool Congress (TMC) spokesperson Saket Gokhale to two-day police custody after he was arrested by Gujarat Police. The former ‘RTI activist’ was arrested over his tweet endorsing a fake news report about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Morbi visit.
Gokhale was apprehended in the early hours of the Tuesday morning in Jaipur, Rajasthan, by officials from the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Cell and brought to Ahmedabad in the afternoon, where he was formally arrested.
Notably, Gokhale had shared a fabricated news report about an RTI query and its response that does not exist. He had claimed that ₹30 crore was spent on PM Modi’s Morbi visit, sharing a news clipping from an unnamed Gujarati newspaper, which was claimed to be Gujarat Samachar. But BJP has said that it is fabricated and no such report was published and there is no such RTI reply, and Gujarat Samachar also clarified that they have not published such a report.
Citing the fake news report, Gokhale claimed that ₹ 5.5 crore was purely for “welcome, event management, & photography”. He also claimed that “Modi’s event management & PR costs more than the life of 135 people”, as the families of the 135 victims of the tragedy were given ex-gratia of ₹4 lakh each, totaling ₹5 crores.
It is pertinent to mention here that Press Information Bureau (PIB) has done a fact check of Saket Gokhale’s tweet and clarified that “no such RTI response has been given.”
Interestingly, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee who is known for jailing people for sharing memes on her or criticising her has backed Saket Gokhale and condemned the BJP’s ‘vindictive attitude’.
“It is a bad and sad incident. Gokhale is popular on social media. He has made no mistake. I condemn this vindictive attitude. He has been arrested as he has tweeted against PM Modi. People also tweet against me,” Mamata told the media at Jaipur airport on Tuesday.