New Delhi: Trinamool Congress leader Saket Gokhale faked documents to allege that Rs 30 crore was spent on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip after the bridge tragedy, Gujarat police said on Tuesday. Gokhale was arrested on Monday night from Jaipur for a tweet on PM Modi’s visit saying “RTI revealed the PM’s visit to Morbi cost ₹ 30 crore”, on December 1. This was flagged as “fake” by the government’s fact-check unit the same day.
BJP leader Amit Kothari filed the police complaint in Ahmedabad that led to the arrest.
Sources in the Cyber Cell told NDTV that Saket Gokhale used the newspaper Gujarat Samachar’s font in the media clipping in his tweet claiming it was an RTI reply. Gujarat Samachar had denied filing any RTI. “The entire RTI was manufactured by Saket Gokhale,” NDTV reported quoting sources.
According to sources, police immediately turned the complaint into an FIR after this. Gujarat Police confirmed having detained Gokhale only after Derek O’Brien, Rajya Sabha leader of Bengal’s ruling Trinamool, tweeted and called it “political vendetta” by the BJP. He said Gokhale had taken a Monday night flight from New Delhi to Jaipur, from where he was “picked up” by Gujarat Police.
Trinamool head and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said Saket Gokhale had only tweeted what he thought were news reports. “This is a vindictive attitude. I condemn it,” she said, speaking to reporters during a visit to Ajmer.
Meanwhile, Gokhale has said it was “an irony,” that he was arrested for tweeting about PM Modi’s visit to Morbi while the owner of Oreva “remained free,” The New Indian Express reported. Gokhale, 35, underwent heart surgery recently and was on a private visit to Jaipur. He recently tweeted a news clipping which apparently appeared to have been published in a leading Gujarati newspaper.
The news clipping claimed a query under the Right to Information (RTI) revealed the Gujarat government had spent Rs 30 crore on PM Modi’s visit to Morbi after a bridge collapsed there in October.
Quoting an RTI, It is being claimed in a tweet that PM’s visit to Morbi cost ₹30 cr.#PIBFactCheck
▪️ This claim is #Fake.
▪️ No such RTI response has been given. pic.twitter.com/CEVgvWgGTv
— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) December 1, 2022
Citing the news clipping which he attached to his tweet, Gokhale said, “RTI reveals that Modi’s visit to Morbi for a few hours cost Rs 30 crore… Just Modi’s event management and PR costs more than the lives of 135 innocent people.”
ACP Jadhav said, “When we contacted Gujarat Samachar, the management told us this news was never published and it was totally fake and created by someone to look authentic. Thus, we have detained Gokhale for spreading fake news.”
TMC national spokesperson @SaketGokhale arrested by Gujarat Police.
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
— Derek O’Brien | ডেরেক ও’ব্রায়েন (@derekobrienmp) December 6, 2022
