The scuffle between TMC and BJP took an ugly turn today over the arrest of their national spokesperson Saket Gokhale, as senior TMC leader Derek O’Brien dragged in Election Commission and said that the EC looks away whenever the BJP CM and an actor turned BJP MP spreads communal biases during Gujarat elections.
Referring to the arrest of Gokhale again, who had earlier been granted bail by Chief metropolitan magistrate M V Chauhan after his police custody was over pertaining to a case over a ‘fake’ tweet, the senior TMC leader said that instead of looking at the major communalising offences committed by senior BJP leaders, the EC and police are busy in arresting Gokhale.
The tweet reads, “BJP CM & an actor turned BJP MP spread communal bile during Gujarat election. What does EC do? Look away.”
It also adds, “@SaketGokhale of @AITCofficial gets bail in one case filed by Gujarat Police & was on his way to airport. What does EC do? Arrest him. Gokhale was being arrested by the police on a different case while he was on his way to the airport.
Derek then brought in Supreme Court's recent interventions in the appointments of the EC and said, "No wonder SC thinks EC is stooge."
Though he didn't name the BJP leaders, from his reference it becomes quite clear who he was pointing to. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma during his Gujarat campaign evoked 'love jihad' angle in Shraddha murder case and brought in severe flaks from different corners for communalising the issue. Shraddha was strangled by her live-in partner Aftab Poonewala who not only killed her, rather brutally chopped her body into 35 parts, stored it into a fridge and spread it across Delhi.
Another case Derek was referring to is of controversial comment by actor turned former BJP MP Paresh Rawal who while addressing a campaign rally in Gujarat said that the people of the state would tolerate inflation but not Bangladeshis and Rohingyas as the neighbours. He asked, “What would you do with LPG? Cooking fish for Bengalis?” Though he apologized for the statement later clarifying that he had no intention to hurt Bengalis and he only wanted to refer to the threats of illegal Bangladeshi migrants, he could not put a lid on the controversy. A case has been registered against Rawal in Kolkata and police have called Rawat to the city for an explanation.
However, the recent spat between TMC and BJP started with certain arrest of Saket Gokhale from Jaipur airport by Gujarat police. As per the police Gokhale was arrested for posting a 'fake' tweet that shared a newspaper clipping and wrote that Rs. 30 crores had been invested for PM Modi's visit to Morbi, where due to a tragic bridge collapse, 135 people had lost their lives on October 30.
Gokhale's tweet mentioned an RTI that the Press Information Bureau fact check, a government fact check machinery said, had never been filed in the first place. The newspapers whose clippings were shared by Gokhale also came up, according to the police with a clarification that they never published such news.
After the primary inquiry by the police, Gokhale however was granted bail and when he was going back to airport when he was arrested again.
