A day after Trinamool Congress spokesperson Saket Gokhale got bail in a case pertaining to allegedly spreading fake news, he claimed that he was arrested on the orders of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was hurt by a tweet, but not the deaths of innocent citizens due to the bridge collapse in the Gujarat’s Morbi district on October 30.
The Trinamool Congress spokesperson was first held in Jaipur on December 5 by the Gujarat Police. He was formally arrested after being brought to Ahmedabad, and subsequently sent to police custody till December 8. The Gujarat Police had alleged that Gokhale tweeted fake news about Modi’s visit to Morbi to get political mileage.
On Thursday, a court in Ahmedabad granted bail to the spokesperson, but he was soon re-arrested in another case filed in the Morbi district. A court in Morbi granted him bail again on Friday.
Gokhale on Saturday questioned why the owners of the Oreva Group, which renovated the suspension bridge in Morbi, had not been named in a first information report or arrested. “Modi is hurt by a tweet,” he remarked. “Not by deaths of 135 innocent people.”
The colonial-era bridge on the Machchu river in Morbi had collapsed just four days after it was reopened for the public following seven months of renovation. The tragedy claimed 141 lives.
The TMC spokesperson said that he was not given any notice for five days after the first case against him was registered in Ahmedabad. “The police told me that the IB was tracking me and told CISF to intercept me at Jaipur airport,” he claimed. “Ahmedabad Police who were in Delhi for a different case were told to rush to Jaipur to arrest me.”
Gokhale claimed that the cases against him were filed to target him and keep him in jail. “A frivolous case was filed for sharing a tweet made by someone else,” he said. “Funnily the police have no clue who that person is.”
On December 1, Gokhale had shared a news clipping about a purported Right to Information application which claimed that Modi’s visit to Morbi cost Rs 30 crore. However, on the same day, the Press Information Bureau tweeted a fact check saying that the information was fake.
The news clipping appeared to be from the local newspaper Gujarat Samachar. The newspaper later denied having published the news, according to the police.
Meanwhile, the TMC spokesperson said that the second case against him was filed against him “on behalf of BJP’s ally Election Commission”. The first information report was filed on the basis of a complaint by DA Zala, the election officer of the Morbi Assembly constituency, according to the Deccan Herald.
“Surprisingly, the case for ‘electoral interference’ was filed after polling for both phases [of the Gujarat election] was over,” Gokhale tweeted. “EC, however, is ok with communal speeches & roadshows by Modi on poll day.”
The TMC leader expressed gratitude to party chief Mamata Banerjee, its national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien for supporting him.
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