BJP, Congress condemn Mamata's ban on newspapers

Kolkata, March 31 (IANS) Criticising the West Bengal government's move to ban leading dailies in state-funded libraries to promote "free thinking" among readers, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress Saturday said a government has no right to decide what people should read.

"What a person should read or not it is to be decided by the common man themselves and not by the government. In democracy, such kind of things should not happen. In 1977, we had seen how Congress was thrown out after emergency. The way a government comes with huge majority, it can go also if it can't perform," BJP MP Prakash Javadekar told media persons here.

Javedekar added that that a government should be sensible and act responsibly.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has drawn severe criticism from all sections of the society following her government's order to ban all dailies except eight vernacular newspapers in state-funded libraries in the name of promoting "free thinking" among readers. Later on after immense pressure from all the section the government was forced to include Bengali daily Aajkaal, English daily The Times of India and three other newspapers in the list.

Alliance partner Congress has also condemned the move and is all set to the state government to reconsider the decision.

"Nobody has right to dictate what to read and what not to. We don't support this decision. We will write to the state government to reconsider the decision. There should not be any government restriction on the choice or taste of the people," state Congress president Pradip Bhattacharjee said.