Activism using the Right to Information Act can dismantle the misinformation campaign and the barrages of fake information peddled by people, especially those in authority for the sake of political capital.
RTI activist Saket Gokhale criticized the Union home minister for “openly perpetrating fake news about the internal security matters just to malign & insult the state of West Bengal for electoral gains.”
This development comes after Gokhale had put forth an RTI query regarding the claim made by Amit shah in October in an interview given on CNN News18. In that interview, Amit Shah had claimed that “there are bomb-making factories in every district of West Bengal”.
As a response to this claim, which came months before the state is about to go to the polls, RTI activist Saket Gokhale had filed a four point RTI. As per the points raised by Gokhale in his RTI request, he asked for the list of bomb making factories in West Bengal which were referred by Amit Shah. Gokhale had also asked whether the MHA had briefed Amit Shah about the factories & whether Shah’s comments were based on official records. The fourth point in Gokhale’s RTI request was whether the information on the bomb factories has been shared with the West Bengal police. The answer from MHA to Gokhale was NO. Also the MHA had claimed in its response that the law & order is a state subject. In fact, these questions have thrown the MHA into a huge discomfort.
But, the almost nil response from the MHA about the alleged bomb factories in West Bengal shows a clear absence of such information on bomb factories which was claimed by the Home Minister. After dissecting the response from the authority on the RTI request, Gokhale stated in his tweet, that this is a shocking situation that the Union Minister of India would openly perpetrate fake news about the internal security matters just to malign & insult the state of West Bengal for electoral gains. He further asked, “how can the Home Minister be trusted when he lies openly on record.”
This is not the first time that Gokhale’s RTI request has placed the authorities in discomfort and in a position with no answer.
Amit Shah in one of his rallies in Delhi had declared, “The Tukde Tukde Gang of Delhi needs to be taught a lesson and punished”.
In December 26, 2019, Saket had filed an RTI request to the MHA regarding the details of the Tukde tukde gang which was referred by Amit Shah. The MHA in its response given to Gokhale on January 20, 2020, vide registration number MHOME/R/2019/54751, had stated, “Ministry of Home Affairs has no information concerning tukde-tukde gang”.
Gokhale’s RTI requests & the subsequent answers have time and again proved the hollow nature of the claims made by BJP leaders in the public domain for the sake of polarization politics.
