Trinamool’s Saket Gokhale Arrested By Gujarat Police Over Tweet on Morbi Bridge Collapse, Claims Party
Alleging “political vendetta” by the BJP, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress has claimed that its spokesperson Saket Gokhale has been arrested by Gujarat Police over a tweet about the Morbi bridge collapse.
The party did not specify which tweet, but the government’s fact-check unit had recently pinpointed Mr. Gokhale’s tweet in which he shared what looked like newspaper clippings saying “RTI revealed the PM’s visit to Morbi cost ₹ 30 crores”.
“This claim is fake,” the Press Information Bureau said in its fact-check of December 1.
Saket Gokhale had taken a Monday night flight from New Delhi to Jaipur in Rajasthan, from where he was “picked up” by Gujarat Police, tweeted Derek O’Brien, a senior leader of Bengal’s ruling party.
“At 2 in the morning on Tuesday, he called his Ma and told her that they are taking him to Ahmedabad and he would reach Ahmedabad by noon today. The police let him make that one two-minute phone call and then confiscated his phone and all his belongings,” Mr. O’Brien further said.
He said the case against the RTI activist-turned-politician has been “cooked up by the Ahmedabad [police] cyber cell about Saket’s tweet on the Morbi bridge collapse”. He did not say which tweet.
In Gujarat’s Morbi town, a colonial-era suspension bridge collapsed on October 30, killing over 130 people, just four days after it was reopened upon renovation. The probe has pointed towards the failure of the municipal authorities as the renovation contractor allegedly did not follow the norms.
The Rajya Sabha member further said: “All this cannot silence All India Trinamool Congress and the Opposition. BJP taking political vendetta to another level.”
Neither the BJP nor the Gujarat government has reacted yet.
News agency PTI contacted Jaipur airport police in-charge Digpal Singh, who said: “I have no information. Nobody informed us.”
The alleged arrest came hours after polling for the Gujarat assembly elections got over.