Rise of Saket Gokhale amid hiccups: RTI activist to TMC spokesperson to its Rajya Sabha new face

The son of a retired police officer, Gokhale studied journalism and media studies. He started off his career as an English teacher at a school in Mlada Boleslav, Czech Republic, in 2008. He later worked as a correspondent for a foreign newspaper, covering Europe and South Asia. He also had a short stint in some Indian newspapers. He then moved to activism, becoming an RTI activist.

Gokhale joined the TMC in August 2021, saying the party was an “obvious choice” for him as it was the “second-largest Opposition party in Parliament”. “If you look at all the national parties, the TMC takes an aggressive stand. The way the Chief Minister of West Bengal (Mamata Banerjee) has been fighting on the front foot, that is what I am looking for,” Gokhale had then said. He has had a meteoric rise in the TMC in less than a couple of years.

Over the last year, Gokhale has however also made news for his legal battles following his arrests in three cases.

In December 2022, he was arrested over a tweet for posting alleged misinformation about the collapse of a bridge in Gujarat’s Morbi.

According to police, an FIR was then registered against him at the cyber cell for offences of forgery, tweeting defamatory content and fear-mongering under the IPC after a complaint by Ahmedabad-based Bhalabhai Kothari, who claimed to be a “senior BJP functionary who was disturbed by Gokhale’s tweet”.

Barely an hour after he received the bail on December 8 in the case, the TMC spokesperson was again arrested by the Morbi police for the same offence. He was again released on bail subsequently.

On December 29, 2022, Gokhale was arrested in a case of alleged misuse of crowdfunded money by the Ahmedabad cyber crime police.

Derek O’Brien, senior TMC leader and Rajya Sabha MP, had then tweeted: “Saket Gokhale has got under the skin of BJP. Vindictive cowards arrested him 3 times in 15 days. Saket is made of sterner stuff and is part of Team Mamata Banerjee, Team All India Trinamool Congress. BJP is doing all they can to keep Saket out of Assembly elections in early 2023 in Meghalaya.”

In January, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) stepped in, arresting Gokhale in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in a crowdfunding initiative. Gokhale was taken into custody under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Ahemdabad, where he was already lodged in judicial custody in a Gujarat police case.

The Central agency charged that he used a significant portion of more than Rs one crore he collected through crowdfunding for “wining and dining”, intra-day trading in the stock market, and for treatment of family members.

Gokhale, who had been in jail since December 2022, was granted bail in this case in May this year. An Ahmedabad court said he now stood clear for release from judicial custody after the Supreme Court granted him bail in April in relation to another FIR lodged at Ahmedabad’s Cyber Crime police station.