Morbi bridge tweet row: TMC's Saket Gokhale moves court for bail

Trinamool Congress spokesperson Saket Gokhale on Thursday moved to Ahmedabad magistrate court seeking bail, said a media report. The Gujarat police on Tuesday arrested Gokhale in connection with a tweet he posted about the Morbi bridge collapse.

Arguing for bail, lawyer and former Rajya Sabha MP Majeed Memon submitted before the court that Gokhale was ready to delete his tweet, adding that he had merely retweeted an existing tweet as a concerned citizen, asking for accountability of public money, reported The Indian Express.

Gokhale had tweeted a clipping of an alleged Right to Information (RTI) query reply and mentioned that Modi's visit to Morbi for a few hours cost Rs 30 crore. The tweet also said that of the whole amount, Rs 5.5 crore was spent purely for welcome, event management and photography.

He had further highlighted that 135 victims who died in the Morbi bridge collapse incident in October got Rs 4 lakh ex-gratia each. "Just Modi's event management and PR costs more than the life of 135 people," the tweet mentioned.

Meanwhile, the government's fact check unit had stated that the claim in the tweet was fake. "Quoting an RTI, it is being claimed in a tweet that PM’s visit to Morbi cost Rs 30 cr. No such RTI response has been given," PIB Fact Check tweeted.

TMC MP Derek O'Brien took to Twitter and said Saket Gokhale had taken a Monday night flight from New Delhi to Jaipur, from where he was "picked up" by Gujarat Police.

"The cooked-up case is filed with the Ahmedabad cyber cell about Saket’s tweet on the Morbi bridge collapse. All this cannot silence All India Trinamool Congress and the Opposition. BJP taking political vendetta to another level," he said.

Also Read: TMC's Saket Gokhale sent to two-day police custody over tweet on PM Modi