AAP MLA Somnath Bharti booked for 'hurling abuses' at woman scribe

The Delhi ruling party MLA Somnath Bharti on Wednesday was booked with charges of hurling abuses at a woman journalist, however the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader claimed that the TV news channel was "misusing" its power.

His party although has disapproved his comment. In the FIR, a woman journalist working with a private news channel has alleged that Bharti called her name and asked to become a prostitute.

"During a live TV debate, the Malviya Nagar MLA, Somnath Bharti, hurled abuses at me and told me to become a prostitute. I am a journalist and understand out responsibility when I asked the question but he abused me, called me an agent of the BJP. He threatened to get our channel shut down. The kind of words he used with a woman, they were offensive and demeaning," she alleged.

The complaint has been filed in IPC sections 504( intentional insult with an intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 509. (Insulting a woman's modesty through words, gestures or an act).

Bharti, however, said he would also file a defamation case against both the news channel and its anchor.

He said he had joined the TV show over phone to discuss the attack on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Tuesday, but the video was being presented with manipulation.

"I will file a defamation case against both the news anchor as well as the channel," he said.

"We were discussing the life threatening attack on chief minister Arvind Kejriwal ... such cases (FIR) shows that the channel is part of the BJP and they are trying to deviate people from the main issues," he claimed.

AAP DISAPPROVES

• However his own party has now disapproved of his comments hurled at the women journalist.
   
• "Somnath Bharti should not have talked the way he did on television," AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said.