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Updated: May 08, 2018 23:13 IST

A Communist Party of China (CPC) official tipped until last year for a top leadership post in the party has been jailed for life on corruption charges, state media reported on Tuesday.

Sun Zhengcai, former secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the CPC and member of the powerful party, was handed life sentence taking bribes of over 170 million yuan (26.7 million US dollars).

Sun, 54, is the latest senior CPC leader to be indicted under graft charges under the ongoing anti-corruption campaign launched by President Xi Jinping.

The sentence was announced Tuesday by the First Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin Municipality.

Sun had confessed to his crimes during a court hearing in April. Official news agency Xinhua said Sun’s illegal gains would be confiscated.

“He was deprived of his political rights for life, and all his personal property was confiscated. His illegal gains and relevant yields they generated will be retrieved,” the court was quoted as saying by state media.

Giving details of the investigation launched against Sun, the court said “…between 2002 and 2017, Sun had taken advantage of various posts to provide help for certain units and individuals in project bidding, project approval, enterprise operation and personnel promotion and arrangement, and accepted money and property worth over 170 million yuan, either by himself or with certain affiliated persons”.

Sun had occupied several high positions during his political tenure.

Sun’s posts included CPC chief of Shunyi District in Beijing, standing committee member and secretary general of the CPC Beijing municipal committee, agriculture minister, secretary of the CPC Jilin provincial committee, political bureau member of the CPC Central Committee and Party chief of Chongqing Municipality.

It was his elevation as CPC chief of Chongqing city, a sprawling municipality of more than 30 million people, that catapulted Sun to his most politically high profile.

The court said that Sun, as a senior official, should have set an example in observing the law. However, by accepting “extremely huge amounts of bribes”, Sun had seriously undermined the work of state organs, violated integrity rules for state officials and tarnished the reputation of state officials.

Last October, another top CPC official had claimed that Sun was among party leaders who had plotted a coup against President Xi Jinping.

In September, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) — then CPC’s top discipline body had announced the expulsion of a rising Sun who was then chief of the Chongqing Municipal Committee.

“In the fight against all corruption from the low-level “flies” to the high-ranking “tigers,” Sun joins several other senior Party officials who have been punished for discipline violation including Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, Guo Boxiong, Xu Caihou and Ling Jihua,” the Xinhua report had then said.

Xi’s critics claim that the anti-graft crackdown was used as a pretext to purge the powerful president’s opponents and to consolidate power — more than one million officials have been jailed or arrested in the crackdown which began soon after he took over in 2012.