Embarking on a damage control exercise, the Mamata Banerjee government on Thursday relented and allowed the state libraries and state government-aided libraries to stock five more newspapers.
Earlier the state government had issued a circular directing public libraries to purchase two Urdu, one Hindi and five Bengali newspapers. The two leading Bengali dailies did not figure in the circular nor did any English daily.
On Wednesday, there were wide-spread criticism of the state government’s policy decision. Political parties, media and more importantly prominent members of the civil society, including large number of those who had earlier supported Ms Banerjee’s call for pariborton decried her decision. On Thursday. the special secretary, library services and mass education department sent another circular to the libraries asking them to subscribe for five more dailies. Meanwhile, the CM came down heavily against the media which had criticised her diktats to the public libraries. “A systematic campaign has been launched to malign my government. A mischievous section is playing a dirty game,” she said. Speaking to a select group of news channels, she said that it was minor issue which was blown out of proportion by her detractors.
“This is a baseless debate which has been started to mislead the people,” she said.