Bengal CM trying to trample democracy: Ex-judge A.K. Ganguly

Accusing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of attempting to trample democracy through her words and behaviour, retired Supreme Court judge A.K. Ganguly Wednesday said there were bound to be protests if a democratically elected government tries to run an autocracy.

"After coming to power, if a democratically elected government forgets everything about democracy, then there will be protests. In the words and behaviour of the head of this government, there is evident an effort to trample democracy," he said, in an oblique reference to Banerjee, whom he did not name.

Accusing Banerjee of efforts to promote newspapers of the chit fund aided Saradha Group, Ganguly said no other government anywhere in the country had tried to "dictate" to the people which dailies they should read.

"I hope all of you remember she had once more or less given a directive on which newspapers people should read. These newspapers have now closed shop. Because they were sponsored by the Saradha chit fund," he said at a programme here.

Ganguly, a former chairperson of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission, said none of the newspapers sponsored by the Saradha Group resembled the characteristics of the mass media.

"They only sang paeans (to the chief minister)," he said. "I don't know if such attempts (to dictate to the people which newspapers they should read) were made by any other government anywhere in the country."

Ganguly's remarks were seemingly directed at the state government order in March 2012 to ban leading dailies, including all English newspapers, except eight Bengali, Urdu and Hindi newspapers, in state-funded libraries to promote "free thinking".

While the papers which got the nod were mostly pro-government, several of them were brought out by the Saradha Group.

The order had kicked up a storm with opposition parties and members of civil society strongly criticising the state government. Later, the order was modified and some more dailies got the green signal.