Mamata Banerjee calls Gokhale a ‘bright man’, says he was arrested for tweeting against Modi

JAIPUR: Trinamool Congress spokesman Saket Gokhale, who was arrested by Gujarat Police in Jaipur early on Tuesday, was produced before a city court and was remanded in police custody till Thursday noon.

Police were acting on a complaint by Ahmedabad-based BJP worker Amit Kothari on December 1. He complained that he saw Gokhale’s tweet which said, “RTI reveals that Modi’s visit to Morbi for a few hours cost Rs 30 crore. Of this, Rs 5.5 crore was purely for ‘welcome, event management, & photography’. 135 victims who died got Rs 4 lakh ex-gratia each i.e. Rs 5 crore. Just Modi’s event management & PR costs more than life of 135 people (sic).”

Kothari said in the FIR that another person, Dax Patel, had also posted a news clipping saying Rs 3 crore was spent on Modi’s visit to Morbi on November 1. Officers said Patel is either on the run or someone had used the name to create a proxy Twitter account. He said he verified with a Gujarati newspaper and found that no such report had been published. Kothari said he checked with the district collector’s office and found no such RTI application was filed either.

The FIR was registered under IPC Sections 469 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine a forged material), 501 (printing or engraving matter known to be defamatory) and 505B (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes).

Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee defended Gokhale, saying he had made no mistake, but only highlighted the Morbi bridge collapse and the PM’s expensive visit through a tweet. Calling Gokhale a “bright man” and his arrest a “sad, sad, incident”, Banerjee said she “condemns this vindictive attitude”. “He has been arrested because he tweeted against the PM. People tweet against me too... We are really feeling sorry about the situation,” she said in Ajmer, where she offered prayers at the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti.