‘Fearless, he stood against…’: TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saket Gokhale

Gokhale has been detained by the Gujarat Police for spreading alleged fake news on the Morbi bridge collapse tragedy.

Published on: Dec 6, 2022, 15:24:14 IST

By HT News Desk, New Delhi

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Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday described activist and party spokesperson Saket Gokhale as ‘fearless,’ after the latter was detained by the Gujarat Police for spreading alleged fake news on the Morbi bridge collapse tragedy.

Saket Gokhale (second from right) joined the TMC in August 2021 (Image credit: Twitter @AITCofficial)

Also Read: Gujarat Police detain TMC’s Saket Gokhale over tweet about Modi’s Morbi visit

In his tweet praising Gokhale, Banerjee also said the police's action was an ‘act of intimidation.’

“Fearless, he stood against the ruling dispensation that trades lives for their own profit. In reaction, panic-stricken @BJP4India got out Nat'l Spokesperson @SaketGokhale arrested by Gujarat Police. It's their folly to think these acts of intimidation will make us to bow down!,” tweeted the Diamond Harbour MP, the virtual number 2 in Trinamool after his aunt Mamata Banerjee, the party's founder and West Bengal chief minister.

Earlier today, TMC's Rajya Sabha MP, Derek O'Brien, tweeted Gokhale – who joined Bengal's ruling party in August last year – was arrested late last night after landing in Jaipur from New Delhi.

Speaking to Hindustan Times on the condition of anonymity, a senior police officer said the former Congress supporter was picked up from Rajasthan's Udaipur, and was being brought to Ahmedabad for further probe.

According to people aware of the matter, the action was taken as he shared an ‘RTI’ that claimed ₹30 crore was spent on prime minister Narendra Modi's visit to a hospital in Morbi to meet the injured. The RTI was debunked as being ‘fake’ by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), a nodal agency of the Government of India.

Following this, an Ahmedabad resident filed a complaint against Saket Gokhale, the people quoted above said.

PM Modi visited the injured on November 1, two days after the tragedy in his home state. As many as 135 people lost their lives due to the bridge collapse.

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