Ministers and State Ministers on Monday tendered their resignations to the Prime Minister during the Cabinet meeting to clear the way for reconstituting the Cabinet for an all-party election time government.
The Ministers and the State Ministers present in the meeting tendered their resignations before the Cabinet meeting began, according to meeting sources.
They said that earlier, in the last Cabinet meeting on November 4, the Prime Minister asked the ministers to resign so that she could induct some new faces in the planned smaller cabinet.
Talking to the reporters at the Secretariat after the day’s Cabinet meeting, Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu said the Ministers and State Ministers attending the day’s meeting have tendered their resignations to the Prime Minister.
He said the Ministers and the State Ministers would be able to do their official and executive duty until the Prime Minister accepts their resignation.
An official at the Cabinet Division confirmed that Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni, Shipping Minister M Shajahan Khan and State Minister for Water Resources Mahbubur Rahman did not attend the day’s Cabinet meeting.
Meanwhile, briefing reporters after the day’s Cabinet meeting, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain said that as per the Constitution, the Ministers and the State Ministers usually tender their resignation to the Prime Minister addressing the President.
He said the day’s meeting was perhaps the last meeting of the Cabinet in its present form.
The Cabinet Secretary also informed that the Cabinet will not be dissolved, but reconstituted and it will be smaller than the existing one.
Several others, including Finance Minister AMA Muhith, minister without portfolio Suranjit Sengupta, and State Minister for Liberation War Affairs Capt (retd) AB Tajul Islam have earlier submitted the resignation letters to the Prime Minister.
Despite the main opposition alliance’s threat to boycott elections, the AL-led Grand Alliance has initiated moves to form the all-party polls-time interim cabinet in line with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s proposal.
But, the BNP-led 18-party alliance has already rejected Hasina’s all-party polls-time government proposal.
Khaleda has asked her arch rival Hasina to bring back a non-party caretaker system, or else it will not participate in the next polls because it fears an election without the caretaker government will not be free, fair and credible.
The BNP and its 17 allies including Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami since Sunday morning have been enforcing the third nonstop strike in a series which this time is for 84 hours, demanding a non-party government to oversee the national elections.
Country’s two arch political rivals who alternately ruled Bangladesh for more than the last couple of decades held phone talks on October 26, the first direct conversation between the two leaders since January 2009 when Hasina cabinet took oath of office.
Although the two parties are seeking dialogue to end impasse over the formation of the polls-time government, no headway has been made so far.
Parliament is due to expire on January 24 next and elections reportedly should be held within 90 days before its expiry.
Source: UNB Connect
