GUWAHATI: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said clean recruitments come with a “political cost”. Addressing a function organised to distribute job letters to 22,958 youth in 11 departments, he said he had started the tradition of clean and transparent recruitment in 2011 and since then, he distributed two lakh appointment letters himself.
“A clean and transparent recruitment process comes with a political cost. People in the BJP, who work for me day and night to help me win elections, expect something from me, but I can’t give them anything,” he added.
Continuing in the same vein, the CM said he and his party were required to make a lot of sacrifices for clean recruitments although there was no compulsion on him for the same. “Despite our political losses, we had started the tradition of clean recruitments in 2011 for Assam’s future. This is because we are taught the nation is above party,” he said.
The CM asked those recruited as police personnel to be sympathetic with the poor but go hard at criminals. “If a man driving a car violates traffic rules, the policeman warns him by blowing the whistle but a rickshaw-puller faces the cop’s stick for the same offence. This has to change,” Sarma said.
Further, he asked the newly-recruited policemen to be content with their salaries and not go for extra money even if asked by their superiors. “My driver is a policeman. While coming to this venue, I asked him how he got the job. He said he got it without paying bribes. When I asked him again, he said he had to pay Rs 20,000.
“After the list at the office of DGP was ready, the dealing assistant could see it. He then informed the driver telling him that if he did not pay Rs 1 lakh, his name would be deleted,” said the CM adding, he would share the name with the DGP who was present at the programme.