AAP finally asks Somnath Bharti to mind his language

New Delhi – Embarrassed by his crass remarks against senior lawyer Harish Salve and BJP leader Arun Jaitley, the Aam Aadmi Party ordered Delhi’s Law Minister Somnath Bharti to pipe down and warned him to mind his language in future.

Unnerved by some of the comments made by Bharti at a recent public meeting held in his South Delhi constituency, senior leaders of party told the lawyer-turned-politician clearly that AAP would not back him in his unparliamentary utterances in future. Bharti, as a result of this dressing down, was unusually quiet on Tuesday and refused to give any bytes to the media.

Unnerved by some of the comments made by Bharti at a recent public meeting held in his South Delhi constituency, senior leaders of party told the lawyer-turned-politician clearly that AAP would not back him in his unparliamentary utterances in future. Bharti, as a result of this dressing down, was unusually quiet on Tuesday and refused to give any bytes to the media.

“We do not endorse such language and he has been clearly told to control himself. The matter had become really controversial and was taking attention away from the real cause,” a senior party leader told ET on the condition of anonymity.

Bharti had courted controversy when he said that he would want to spit on the faces of Jaitley and Salve after they criticised his midnight raid in the Khriki Extension last week. His diatribe against the Delhi Police for not making a series of arrests ordered by him and not acting appropriately when cases of sex/drug racket and dowry death were pointed to them had come under heavy criticism from activists and experts.

“I want to spit on the faces of BJP leader Arun Jaitley and senior lawyer Harish Salve to tell them to mend their ways… I warn you, the public is going to hound you and beat you,” the minister had said at a public meeting on Sunday. The media went hammer and tongs after the minister and senior leader Yogendra Yadav was forced to apologise on his behal f to a television channel.

“The language was completely wrong. The dharna on its own was fine, but the fact that it was being held in the backdrop of Bharti’s remarks, people then started mistaking it as the party’s endorsement of the language used,” another senior member of the political advisory committee of the party told ET.