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TMC's Saket Gokhale has a message to Karnataka winners: ‘Every prison more bearable’
Trinamool national spokesperson Saket Gokhale made an advanced appeal as counting for Karnataka Assembly Election 2023 began.
Trinamool national spokesperson Saket Gokhale who spent the last 4.5 months in the Ahmedabad Central Jail in a crowdfunding case on Saturday made an advanced appeal to all those who will win in the 242 assembly constituencies in Karnataka where the counting is going on. The appeal is: don't sell out to BJP.
"If it’s a hung assembly, don’t sell out to BJP. Having been jailed by ED, let me tell you that even prison is more bearable than joining a party of monsters. Remember the people who voted for you & do the right thing," Saket Gokhale tweeted.
Granted bail by a special court on May 6, as Saket walked out of the jail, he targetted the BJP government in Gujarat for imprisoning him. In a long Twitter thread posted on Friday, Saket reiterated his innocence and his faith in the judiciary. "Of the 1700 people that crowdfunded me between 2019-20, a complaint of Rs. 500 by ONE donor (incidentally a Gujarat Govt official) was used to charge me with “money laundering”. Sadly for the BJP, these months of imprisonment didn’t break me like they wanted. ’m confident of my innocence & have immense faith in our judiciary which I trust will give me justice. I have done my work with the greatest dedication through all these years. And I’ll continue to do the work I’ve always done with the same spirit," he wrote.
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Recounting his ordeal, Saket wrote he was arrested 3 time in December by Gujarat Police in a span of 20 days. "That Gujarat Police would book someone who has never been to Gujarat isn’t surprising since that state is BJP’s laboratory for persecution," he wrote.
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Message to Karnataka MLAs
Karnataka is seeing a neck-and-neck fight between the Congress and the BJP with JD(S) likely to play a significant role in deciding the winner. As the counting proceeds, trading of MLAs, and resort politics are expected to follow. Congress's Siddaramaiah has reportedly spoken to 10 Independent candidates for support, while JD(S) said it has not yet been approached by any party. Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar said they will not be moving their MLAs to resort before the result is clear.
