Saket Gokhale, a Trinamool Congress (TMC) spokesperson, is among the six candidates announced by the Mamata Banerjee-led party for the Rajya Sabha elections, which are scheduled to be held on July 24. Despite facing several cases, including one related to alleged money laundering, the TMC has nominated Gokhale for the Rajya Sabha seat.
Other candidates who have been named are Derek O'Brien, Dola Sen, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Samirul Islam and Prakash Chik Baraik. The term of TMC MPs O'Brien, Dola Sen, Sushmita Dev, Shanta Chhetri and Sukhendu Sekhar Ray and Congress member Pradip Bhattacharya will come to an end on August 18.
Who is Saket Gokhale?
Gokhale, who is currently a spokesperson in TMC, joined the party in 2021. He is a Right To Information (RTI) activist. He has filed dozens of queries including on the Pegasus spyware.
The TMC leader had also worked as a correspondent at the 'Financial Times' and at the 'Hindustan Times'.
Saket Gokhale controversies
Tweet over PM Modi's visit to Morbi
In December 2022, Gokhale was arrested by the Gujarat Police for alleged misinformation about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Morbi where a bridge collapse killed over 130 people in October 2022. Gokhale was detained at Jaipur in Rajasthan by officials of the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Cell.
Gokhale tweeted a news clipping which was published in a leading Gujarati newspaper. The news claimed a query under the Right to Information (RTI) revealed that the Gujarat government had spent Rs 30 crore on PM Modi's visit to Morbi after a bridge collapse. However, the Press Information Bureau said that the claim was fake.
Later, he was granted bail from a metropolitan court in Ahmedabad. Soon after he received bail from a court, the TMC leader was again arrested on December 8, 2022, by the Morbi police for the same offence registered there. He was granted bail the next day.
TMC leader arrested in money laundering case
In December last year, Gokhale was arrested by Gujarat Police from Delhi in an alleged misappropriation of funds case registered against him at Ahmedabad. The case pertains to the alleged misuse of money he had collected through crowdfunding during the COVID-19 pandemic. He had allegedly collected money from more than 1,700 people through a crowdfunding platform "Our Democracy" which was supposed to be used for legal aid, journalism and other public purposes.
Later in January 2023, Gokhale, when he was in jail over alleged misuse of crowdfunded money, was arrested again by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for alleged misappropriation of funds collected through crowdfunding.
Gokhale was granted bail in April this year in an alleged misappropriation of funds case registered against him at Ahmedabad. Then in May, a special court gave bail to a TMC leader in an Enforcement Directorate (ED) case. Currently, Gokhale is out on bail.
Data breach allegation
TMC leader Gokhale had alleged that the data of several citizens, including politicians and journalists who took Covid vaccine, were leaked. He had questioned the Modi government over the leaked data. In a series of tweets, Gokhale said, "SHOCKING: There has been a major data breach of Modi government where personal details of all vaccinated Indians including their mobile numbers, Aadhaar numbers, Passport numbers, Voter ID, Details of family members etc. have been leaked and are freely available."
He cited the example of a data breach of several opposition MPs, including Derek O'Brien, former Union Minister P Chidambaram, Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and KC Venugopal, Deputy Chairman Rajya Sabha Haribansh Narayan Singh, Rajya Sabha MPs Sushmita Dev, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Sanjay Raut.
