West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari told the State Assembly on Tuesday that a Bill with new and more stringent anti-corruption legal provisions will be moved on the floor of the House on the last day of the ongoing budget session on June 25.
Participating in a debate over the budget proposals of the state Finance Minister Swapan Dasgupta, which was tabled on the floor of the West Bengal Assembly on Monday, the Chief Minister said that once the new law will be implemented, not only will the guilty be jailed, but the money earned by him or her through the corruption route and the property of the convict will be confiscated and auctioned.
Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Adhikari reiterated the state government's commitment of adopting a zero-tolerance approach towards corruption. "Many people might think that they would spend two months in jail and then get freed after a legal fight! They should remember that this time we will confiscate their property.
We will auction the property," the Chief Minister said. He also indirectly targeted the former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress' General Secretary, though without directly naming any one of them.
On this issue, Chief Minister Adhikari referred to the different controversial properties in and around Kalighat area in Kolkata and Amtala in South 24 Parganas district, which are reportedly linked to different members of Mamata Banerjee's family.
"We will make arrangements to accommodate people living under the flyover in Kolkata in the palaces of Harish Chatterjee Street and Harish Mukherjee Road in South Kolkata and Amtala in South 24 Parganas," the Chief Minister said.
Speaking on the floor of the House, Chief Minister Adhikari also added that henceforth there will be no bias in government job recruitments and the entire recruitment process will be carried out in a transparent manner.
"No politician will be involved in the recruitment process. All state recruitment recruitments will be done in the model followed by the Union Public Service Commission in case of Central government recruitments," the Chief Minister said.