Mamata Banerjee tells Bengal ministers to 'STOP using pilot cars, OTHERWISE...'

Kolkata: In a major image-building exercise, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has directed all her ministers to stop using pilot cars with red beacons anywhere in the state, except on highways, and advised them to be very careful while signing any official document. A West Bengal govt official said on Thursday that the fresh directives from Banerjee are being seen as an attempt to rebuild the image of her government which received back-to-back jolts following the arrests of senior leaders Partha Chatterjee and Anubrata Mondal.

The Trinamool Congress chief passed these orders while addressing the first meeting of the state cabinet, following the recent reshuffle, during which she also stated that her department would fix separate tasks for the ministers of state, who till date had ‘very little responsibilities to carry out.

"The chief minister at Thursday's meeting asked her ministers to stop using pilot cars. Ministers can be escorted by pilot cars with red beacons at times when they are travelling on highways, but not anywhere else in the state," the bureaucrat was quoted as saying by the news agency PTI.

The Chief Minister also advised cabinet ministers to go through any documents thoroughly before signing them," he said. At Thursday's meeting, Banerjee was learnt to have pulled up state forest minister Jyotipriya Mallick, pointing out that she had been receiving several complaints against him. She directed Mallick to maintain a “clean image.” 

Partha Chatterjee, who held the industry portfolio, was relieved of his ministerial responsibilities and suspended from the TMC following his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) last month in connection with the probe into a school recruitment scam.

Notably, the West Bengal cabinet met for the first time on Thursday after Partha Chatterjee's removal from the ministry.