Saket Gokhale comments “Modi is not India,” dissatisfied by RTI’s reply over ban on BBC’s documentary – Fabricated reply?

Saket Gokhale claims to have received unsatisfactory RTI Reply

Saket Gokhale, the nationwide spokesperson on behalf of the Trinamool Congress, claims to have obtained a reply to a Right to Information (RTI) request he made to the Information and Broadcast Ministry (I&B) asking why the BBC‘s contentious film on Narendra Modi, the country’s prime minister, “India: The Modi Question,” was banned.

He published a letter he received as a response to the RTI request on Thursday. The interdepartmental committee’s deliberations are private and prohibited from publication pursuant to Section 8(1)(a) in the RTI Act, according to the RTI enquiry response.

The BBC documentary, according to Gokhale, was unlawfully outlawed, and he indicated the reason why he believes the I&B Ministry (MIB) is withholding details. The MIB has the authority by Rule 16 to prohibit electronic material in times of emergency, and only following that is the Ministry obligated to form an Inter-Departmental Committee (IDC) to assess the ban, according to a TMC spokeswoman who shared RTI papers in a Twitter thread. The IDC cannot impose its own judgment; it is limited to recommending it.

He clarified that the Ministry must keep comprehensive records of all IDC activities, including complaints forwarded and Committee recommendations.

Gokhale said that MIB refused to explain him the grounds underlying prohibiting the BBC’s documentary on the prime minister, despite the fact that Rule 17 of IT Rules specifies that the IDC’s deliberations are public documents.

The two-part documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots, which took place when Modi was the state’s chief minister, caused a major outrage in India. It was condemned by the government as propaganda, and it was forbidden from being distributed or shown inside the nation.

Gokhale announced that he will now file an appeal, asking the ministry to immediately publish the IDC’s talks and the justifications for the prohibition against the documentary about Modi, citing issues pertaining to India’s sovereignty as well as integrity.

Modi is NOT India. His criticism cannot be BANNED as a ‘threat to India’.

– Saket Gokhale

Centre’s directives to YouTube and Twitter

The Center had demanded the removal of the documentary’s streaming links from YouTube and Twitter, as well as higher education administrators in several varsities had forbade students from screening the movie and punished those who had. Students’ organizations and opposing groups still showed the video to the public despite the restriction.

Tax authorities conducted searches of the BBC offices located in Delhi and Mumbai in February, a few days after the program ended up being a political flashpoint. The UK broadcaster was the subject of an inquiry by the Enforcement Directorate in April after allegations of breaking foreign exchange laws. The examination, according to a government consultant, was not retaliatory.

Fact Check by PIB

The tweet on December 1 quoted a Right to Information (RTI) response that showed the PM’s trip to Morbi incurred the Gujarat government an expense of INR 30 crore, much more compared to the INR 5 crore in the total compensation paid to victims. The government’s fact-checking division reported this as fraudulent the same day. This assertion is false. Such an RTI answer has not been provided.

Saket Gokhale fabricated RTI Reply?

Gokhale was found to be spreading a false news story concerning an RTI enquiry as well as its unfounded response. He had shared a news article from what was said to be Gujarat Samachar, a supposedly unidentified Gujarati publication, in which it was stated that INR 30 crore had been spent on PM Modi’s visit to Morbi. However, the BJP maintains that it is untrue, that no such report was released, that no such RTI reply exists. Moreover, Gujarat Samachar is additionally disputing publishing such a report.

According to Saket Gokhale, on December 1, 2022, INR 30 crore had been spent on preparations for Gujarat’s Morbi visit by Prime Minister Modi in the wake of the tragic bridge collapse. Gokhale stated via a clipping from a Gujarati daily that an RTI response revealed that only a couple of hours of the PM’s visit to Morbi cost INR 30 crore.

Gokhale asserted, using the supposed study, that the sum of INR  5.5 crore was used just for photographing, event management, and greeting. Additionally, he asserted that Modi’s event management and PR efforts cost greater than the lives of 135 people because relatives of those who were victims of the disaster received ex-gratia payments of INR 4 lakh individually, for a total of INR 5 crore.

Saket Gokhale had not been the only person to share this information; the previous day, a Twitter user by the name of Dax Patel also shared the exact same clipping. According to the purported news article, the Morbi district collector’s office disclosed this in response to an RTI inquiry from a man named Deepak Patel.

According to the newspaper, the breakdown of the alleged expenditure was as follows: INR 8 crore had been spent on hospital painting, sanitation, improved beds, along with a water cooler; INR 11 crore had been spent on new roadways; INR 3 crore was used for welcoming PM Modi; INR 2.5 crore had been spent on the PM’s protection; INR 2 crore reportedly used for event management; finally, INR 50 lakhs had been spent on photographing.

Later, the same allegation was made by several additional Twitter users who posted the snippets from their personal accounts. BJP Gujarat, nevertheless, has claimed that this is false information since no such RTI was submitted as well as no such response to any RTI was sent. Additionally, BJP Gujarat tweeted that the recent clipping was fake and claimed that no information of this kind had ever been made public.

TMC is a party of liars. It starts from @MamataOfficial to lowly spokespersons like you.

– Gujarat BJP said, tagging TMC chief Mamata Banerjee.

The West Bengal BJP made the same claim, claiming that Gokhale is disseminating false information and that there exists no such document or RTI response. Numerous additional social media individuals questioned the clipping and also said it was a fake.

In particular, a check on the internet turned up no similar Gujarati report. However, many local publications lack an internet presence, and some merely distribute scans of their printed editions as e-papers, making them searchable. However, the Gujarati newspaper article Gokhale provided lacks the title of the publication and the publication date of the article, making it challenging to track down and confirm the report.

The clipping’s original poster, Dax Patel, said that it came from Gujarat Samachar. When a Twitter user asked for the title of the newspaper as well as a link to the article, Dax Patel just responded, Gujarat Samachar, without providing a link. A team of journalists attempted to look up the media article through the Gujarat Samachar website but was unable given that no such link had been provided.

In order to confirm that the item actually originates from Gujarat Samachar, the journalists then spoke about it to the newspaper’s online section. They firmly asserted that they had never released a report of this nature. Despite the fact that the piece appears to be from Gujarat Samachar, they claimed they did not print it.

While the fonts and appearance of the clipping resemble Gujarat Samachar, it is noteworthy that the structure of the report is not consistent with genuine publications. The clipping lacks the date and day, the title of the location, and the origin of the story that Gujarat Samachar normally prints at the very beginning of each of their reports.

Some journalists also spoke with a few Morbi locals to find out more concerning the ‘RTI activist Deepak Patel’ named in the fictitious report, but none of them had ever heard of him or her. As a result, it appears that the BJP’s assertion that this report was falsified is accurate.

Saket Gokhale was arrested few days ago during night time in Jaipur for allegedly disseminating false information on Prime Minister Modi in a tweet. Following a complaint to the police in Ahmedabad by BJP leader Amit Kothari, the arrest occurred. He will be charged with forgery, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

According to sources within the Gujarat police cyber unit, Saket Gokhale is suspected of using the Gujarat Samachar newspaper’s typeface in the media piece he claimed was an RTI response in his tweet. Gujarat Samachar said no RTI was submitted. According to reports, Saket Gokhale created the whole RTI. They also noted that an RTI response typically takes a minimum of two months.

According to Mr. Gokhale, it was ironic that he had been detained for the tweet while the person responsible for the bridge catastrophe, the founder of the Oreva firm hired to maintain and rebuild the bridge, was free.

Only when Derek O’Brien, a Rajya Sabha leader for Trinamool, tweeted that the BJP was engaging in political vengeance, did the Gujarat police admit to have held Mr. Gokhale. He said that Mr. Gokhale had flown Monday night from Delhi towards Jaipur, where Gujarat police had snatched him up. He was in Jaipur on an unofficial visit after having recent surgery on his heart.

Police in Rajasthan said they were completely clueless. Police officials in Gujarat claim that they were never told. Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of Bengal, said that Saket Gokhale had just tweeted the things he believed to be news items. Addressing to reporters while on a tour to Ajmer, she described it as a vengeful attitude in addition to saying that she hates it.