JP stays in govt; BNP left with agitation only; PM meets president; new ministers’ oath today
A one-sided election without the BNP and its allies now looks more of a reality, as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday decided to form the polls-time cabinet today, picking new members for the cabinet from among her party-led grand alliance.
Hasina met President Abdul Hamid at Bangabhaban in the evening, and handed him the resignation letters of the ministers and state ministers, who will be left out of the interim cabinet.
The president will appoint the new cabinet members on the PM’s advice and administer the oath today amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts to resolve the current political impasse over election-time government.
US Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Desai Biswal is in the capital on a three-day tour to bring the two rival camps to the negotiating table for a participatory national election expected to be held by January 24.
Following a meeting with Biswal in the afternoon, Hasina went to Bangabhaban and gave the president the resignation letters the ministers and state ministers had submitted to her a week ago.
Biswal held talks with BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia on the ongoing crisis more than two hours after the PM’s meeting with the president.
It appears the ongoing crisis will deepen further, as the BNP-led opposition has refused to join this interim cabinet. The opposition alliance sticks to its demand for a non-party interim government and has vowed to resist any election under a government led by Hasina.
The prime minister has picked the new cabinet members from the ruling Awami League and its allies — the Jatiya Party, the Workers Party and the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, according to sources in the government and the ruling parties.
The cabinet will not take an “all-party” look, as the BNP and its allies — the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Bangladesh Jatiya Party — have decided to stay away from the polls-time government.
The new cabinet members include AL lawmakers Amir Hossain Amu and Tofail Ahmed, Workers Party lawmaker Rashed Khan Menon, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal lawmaker Mayeen Uddin Khan Badal, and Jatiya Party lawmakers Anisul Islam Mahmud, Ruhul Amin Hawlader, Rawshan Ershad, Ziauddin Bablu, Mujibul Haque and Salma Islam, said the sources.
Some incumbent ministers, including AMA Muhith, Matia Chowdhury, Syed Ashraful Islam, Obaidul Quader, MK Alamgir, Shafique Ahmed, Hasanul Haq Inu and GM Quader will continue with their offices, as the PM didn’t submit their resignation letters to the president, they said.
Though Hasina has been speaking against the inclusion of non-elected people in the defence of her stance against the caretaker government system, her interim cabinet will include some technocrats, including Shafique and Bablu.
The cabinet is likely to be moderately big in size with 30 members, not a small one as suggested by the PM and her party leaders on many occasions.
Source: The Daily Star
(1) How can this interim care-taker government under the prime ministership of same Hasina
be called ” ALL PARTY GOVERNMENT” where not a single member of the main opposition parties of the 18 party alliance is included?. (2) Most of the current ministers who resigned as ministers also remained in the government retaining their portfolio? These 4 parties who would represent the “INTERIM” government had already been in Hasina’s coalition government.