Aam Aadmi Party legislator Somnath Bharti Saturday tendered an apology for his 2018 remark against Sudarshan News journalist Ranjana Dwivedi. A Delhi court hearing the defamation case, filed against the AAP MLA decided to compound the case in view of an apology tendered to Ranjana Dwivedi. Sudarshan News took to Twitter to share the news.
https://twitter.com/SudarshanNewsTV/status/1373237038053421060?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwIn his statement before the court, Bharti said that his statements were not directed towards the Sudarshan News journalist and offered his sincere and deepest apology if he hurt the sentiments of the complainant in any way.
In view of the apology, Ranjana Dwivedi agreed to compound the case against the Bharti and also took back her FIR filed against the AAP MLA under Section 504/509 IPC.
AAP MLA Somnath Bharti asks a woman journalist to become a prostitute
The defamation case against the MLA was filed by Sudarshan TV journalist Ranjana Dwivedi for allegedly using objectionable language against her and hurling abuses during a live television debate show in 2018.
In November 2018, during a live debate on Sudarshan News, the AAP MLA had asked Dwivedi to ‘stop doing bh*dwagiri’ followed by directing her to become a prostitute. Somnath Bharti was called to speak on the then incident where a man allegedly threw red chilli powder on Delhi chief Arvind Kejriwal. The AAP MLA was seen getting personal with the journalist, following which he threatened that the channel will close down after 2019, “yeh bh*dwagiri chalegi nahin, 2019 ka intezar kar lo,” Bharti was caught telling Sudarshan TV journalist Ranjana Dwivedi.
The clip of this incident had gone viral on social media, following which an FIR was filed at a police station in Noida against Somnath Bharti.
Shockingly, instead of condemning the behaviour of his colleague, Arvind Kejriwal and his team had then resorted to deflecting the issue and brazening it out.
AAP leader Somnath Bharti has had an extremely controversial past. In 2014, Bharti had carried out a midnight raid in Khirki Extension where Bharti and his aides had allegedly assaulted a Ugandan woman. Bharti’s wife Lipika had accused him of domestic violence as well as attempted murder and causing miscarriage without the consent of woman.
More recently, the senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Somnath Bharti was sent to judicial custody for 14 days after misbehaving with police officials in Uttar Pradesh. Ink was thrown at him while he was on his way to visit government schools in Rae Bareli. Following the ink attack, an enraged Bharti resorted to dishing out death threats to Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath.