Drama at DCW presser: Somnath's mother refused entry

High drama unfolded here on Monday when AAP leader Somnath Bharti's mother, Manorama Rani Bharti, said that she was willing to stay at an old age home if Bharti and his wife reconciled.

Manorama Rani, who reached the south Delhi residence of Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Barkha Singh, said: "I am pained to hear that my daughter-in-law is not living with us only because I live with my son, Somnath Bharti."

She further appealed to the DCW to intervene and help sort out the matter between Bharti and his wife, Lipika Mitra. "I am ready to move to an old age home if they both agree to live together".

Manorama Rani reached Singh's residence where Mitra was addressing the media. However, on demanding to meet the DCW chief, she was asked to seek an appointment at the Commission's office.

Police personnel deployed at Singh's residence refused to let Manorama Rani enter the former's house.

Lipika said that she expected Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to hear her out in the case of domestic violence involving her husband.

"I expected Kejriwal to give me a fair chance and at least listen to me," Lipika Mitra, who has filed a complaint of domestic violence against her husband, told media here.

On June 10, Mitra approached the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) alleging that the AAP leader has been abusing her ever since their marriage in 2010.

Mitra said she wanted no "reconciliation" with the former Delhi law minister and instead wanted an FIR registered against Bharti "after he made comments that he had no relations with me for last five years".

"He (Bharti) unleashed a dog on me and just stood watching me fight the animal until someone knocked at our door. It was only then that he shooed the dog away and dragged me to our bedroom," she said.

"In fact, whenever we used to have a fight, he always called me a prostitute," she said. The two met through a matrimonial website. "We had a love marriage," she said.

On being asked about her differences with Bharti's mother, Mitra said it was her mother-in-law who threw her out of their rented accommodation in 2011.

Manorama Rani said such allegations were "baseless."