The AAP seems to be battling on multiple fronts in Delhi as garbage piles up on the streets and municipal employees shun work en masse.

While other controversies surrounding the party involve domestic violence charges against one of its prominent leaders and a former Minister in police custody for possessing a fake degree, the AAP has now appointed a new Law Minister in Delhi whose penchant for repartee may only add to its troubles.

The latest in the series of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s offensive against the Centre is a letter he shot off to the Union Home Ministry, insisting that he was right in transferring a top bureaucrat back to the Centre. The bureaucrat in question this time is the Principal Secretary (Home) in Delhi, Dharam Pal, whom Kejriwal wants removed. The Centre has backed Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, who has nullified Pal’s transfer order.

This new tension has emerged as the AAP continues to face heat on charges surrounding former Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar. Tomar failed to get relief from the court on his plea opposing his police remand on Wednesday. The court refused to grant him interim bail.

Somnath Bharti, who had hit headlines last year for his sexist comments and midnight raids of the homes of African women in south Delhi, is facing charges of domestic violence from his wife Lipika Mitra.

Mitra’s complaint to Delhi police relates an account of regular physical assault and an instance where Bharati allegedly set a dog upon her while she was pregnant.

Bharti today met the CM at his residence. The meeting was attended by other AAP leaders including Ashutosh and Kumar Vishwas. Meanwhile, State BJP workers gathered outside Bharti’s office in Malviya Nagar and shouted slogans against him.

Amid these raging controversies is the issue involving payment of salaries to municipal corporation employees who are refusing to lift garbage till they are paid. Garbage continued to be piled on streets in east and north Delhi, where different units of the municipal corporation have not paid their employees.

In this melee, Delhi has a new Law Minister in AAP MLA Kapil Mishra — a person relatively unknown in the political circles. But he has quite a colourful profile in social media, a characteristic he shares with a number of his young party colleagues. A sample from his tweets is a case in point.

To a suggestion by socialite Suhel Seth that the AAP should “shift its headquarters to the National School of Drama”, Mishra replied: “In National School of Drama, your father Narendra Modi has opened a tea stall. In Mumbai, a street is named after you. It is called Dalal Street.”

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