TMC MP Derek O’Brien today took to Twitter to inform that their national spokesperson Saket Gokhale has been allegedly arrested by Gujarat Police. He claimed that Gokhale landed in Jaipur, Rajasthan after taking a 9 PM flight from New Delhi. However, Gujarat Police was there to arrest him instead.
TMC national spokesperson @SaketGokhale arrested by Gujarat Police.
— Derek O’Brien | ডেরেক ও’ব্রায়েন (@derekobrienmp) December 6, 2022
Saket took a 9pm flight from New Delhi to Jaipur on Mon. When he landed, Gujarat Police was at the airport in Rajasthan waiting for him and picked him up. 1/3
He further informed that he was picked up by Police and that at 2 AM he called up his mother to inform her that the police is taking him to Ahmedabad and that he will arrive in the city by noon on Tuesday.
The cooked up case is filed with the Ahmedabad cyber cell about Saket’s tweet on the Morbi bridge collapse.
— Derek O’Brien | ডেরেক ও’ব্রায়েন (@derekobrienmp) December 6, 2022
All this cannot silence @AITCofficial and the Opposition. BJP taking political vendetta to another level. 3/3
O’Brien claimed that the police had confiscated Gokhale’s phone after that short phone call he had with his mother. He then claimed that the arrest was due to Gokhale’s tweet on Morbi bridge collapse.
Gokhale, a former RTI ‘activist’ and current Trinamool Congress leader, was caught sharing 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 has also said that they have not published such a report.
Citing the so-called 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 life of 135 people”, as the families of the 135 victims of the tragedy were given ex-gratia of ₹4 lakh each, totalling ₹5 crore.
There was no such RTI and no such media report as claimed by Gokhale.
