Bengal: Mamata Govt not Ready to Give Adverts to Anti-establishment Newspaper

Kolkata: The West Bengal government’s persistent refusal to grant advertisements to certain newspapers and periodicals, allegedly due to their oppositional stance against the state’s Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, has sparked criticism. Despite objections from various quarters, including a direction from the High Court, the government stands firm on its decision.

One prominent case involves Ganashakti, a notable vernacular newspaper in West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress government halted advertisements to this publication, citing its political affiliations with the opposition Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)]. 

However, the Calcutta High Court’s ruling dismissed the government’s stance, stating that “so-called political affiliation is not an impediment” to the allocation of advertisements to the paper. Despite this court order, the government has not started giving advertisements, and the case is pending before a division bench.

The Bengali daily approached the High Court in 2012, claiming it was being discriminated against as the West Bengal government had refused to give any advertisement to the publication, according to a report in The Hindu published on March 22, 2015

Shamik Lahiri, Editor of Ganashakti, told NewsClick that not a penny of government ads has come to the newspaper since 2011. “The government is autocratic, and even after its terrible face loss in the High Court, it is lingering with the case before a division bench. In the interim period, the government has not adhered to the earlier high court ruling. This government does not adhere to democratic norms,” he rued, speaking to NewsClick.

Advocate and CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, commenting on the case, said that the state government is not adhering to democratic norms of functioning and is even violating a high court order to give advertisements only to the newspapers which toe its line. “This is most unfortunate,” he said, talking to NewsClick.

Opposition voices are miffed, and the various district-level periodicals and newspapers are not getting government advertisements either, many alleged. Those who are getting government advertisements are getting negligible amounts.

NewsClick spoke to Samir Ghosh, a senior newsperson and editor of Sangbad Prabaha, a vernacular weekly newspaper with 15,000 circulation and based in North 24 Parganas district. Ghosh said that the prominent newspapers in Kolkata are getting ads to the tune of Rs 50 lakhs per day, whereas the district-level newspapers receive Rs 300 to 400 of ad revenue per issue. 

“My paper was started in 2002, and until 2011, during the Left Front government’s time, every district-level newspaper was getting government Ads. After 2011, everything stopped; later, the government started giving Ads, but on a minuscule basis. After the Covid pandemic, there has been a fall in circulation of all newspapers, and the district-level newspapers are no exception. At this time, what we needed was government support, which was hard to come by,” Ghosh said.

Kaushik Chatterjee, Editor of Jhar newspaper of Murshidabad district, also echoed the worries of the Sangbad Prabaha editor. Our newspaper is 56-years-old; but in the present times, getting ad revenue from government sources is a far cry.

“In the times of the Left Front government, this sort of partisan attitude was not marked as we were crystal clear about our policy. We used to give advertisements to every newspaper group enlisted with the government. But now, under present circumstances, the very head of the government has directed the implementation of such a policy when giving government Ads,” said Prof Anjan Bera, former Minister of Information and Cultural Affairs during the Left Front government. Explaining further, Bera said, “Our rationale was that our advertisements in anti-establishment papers would ensure that government schemes get good mileage, reaching the desired target audience. However, their (government’s) target now is not to keep any anti-establishment papers alive in the state. It’s an unfortunate scenario.”