Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi MLA Somnath Bharti was arrested on Monday in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli district over an alleged derogatory remark he made two days ago in the adjoining Amethi district on the state of hospitals in Uttar Pradesh.
In a tweet, Mr Bharti accused the UP police of not following procedure, leading to his bail application in a designated court being scheduled for Wednesday, as a result of which the AAP leader will have to spend atleast the next two days in a jail.
However, Mr Bharti's arrest in the case preceded high drama outside the Rae Bareli guest house where he was staying earlier this morning. As Mr Bharti attempted to leave the guest house to visit a nearby school, part of a AAP campaign in UP where its leaders are trying to visit state government school to highlight what they call a total lack of infrastructure, he was stopped by the Rae Bareli police. The police told Mr Bharti he could not leave the guest house as the neighboring Amethi police wanted to question and arrest him in a case filed against him for "derogatory remarks".
This led to a full-blown argument with the cops and in the middle of all this, a person reportedly from a right-wing organization threw ink at him. The police detained that person but let him go later as they claimed no complaint was filed. The incident led to another heated argument between Mr Bharti and the cops. A 23-second video of this argument purportedly shows a fuming Somnath Bharti use derogatory language against Chief Minister Adityanath. An earlier video shows Mr Bharti purportedly threating to get the cops 'stripped of their uniform'.
The Rae Bareli police say they have filed a separate case in this matter, under sections of the IPC like "voluntarily causing hurt to any person being a public servant in the discharge of his duty, rioting, assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty and others.
"You get ink thrown, you get goons to attack me, you get false cases filed, you get pressure put on courts and get me sent to jail. Yogi ji, we will fight," Mr Bharti said in a tweet in Hindi.
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