No gazette notification has yet been published about the resignation of the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina who resigned on August 5 amid an unprecedented student-people uprising and fled to India.
Immediately after she had left the country, Bangladesh Army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman said that an interim government would be formed as prime minister Sheikh Hasina had resigned from her post.
He did not provide any more details about her resignation.
Later, an interim government led by Professor Muhammad Yunus took office on August 8.
On August 10, in an exclusive interview with international news agency Reuters, Sajeeb Wzed, Hasina’s adviser and only son, claimed that his mother did not resign from her position before leaving for India.
He said that as protesters started marching towards Ganabhaban, the official residence of the prime minister, Hasina had to flee without any delay.
‘She had planned to make a statement and submit her resignation. But then the protesters started marching on the prime minister’s residence. And there was no time. My mother wasn’t even packed. As far as the constitution goes, she is still the prime minister of Bangladesh,’ Sajeeb said.
The remarks of Sajeeb triggered some debates.
On the following day of the publication of his interview, the interim government’s foreign affairs adviser Touhid Hossain dismissed Sajeeb’s claim that Hasina did not resign before leaving the country.
Asked whether the Awami League president had ‘resigned on paper’, the adviser said at a media briefing, ‘I am telling you whatever I know. What I have learned in the council [advisory council] meeting was that she has resigned and her resignation letter is with the president—that much has been confirmed. I cannot say anything more.’
New Age on Thursday asked the Cabinet Division and Bangabhaban officials about the gazette notification of Hasina’s resignation.
‘So far I know, no such gazette notification has yet been published regarding Sheikh Hasina’s resignation,’ Cabinet Division secretary for coordination and reforms Md Mahmudul Hossain Khan told New Age.
The president’s press secretary Md Joynal Abedin also told New Age that he was not aware of it.
A gazette notification, however, was published within a few hours of submission of her resignation to the president by Jatiya Sangsad speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury on September 2.
Saying that not publishing a gazette in this regard was ‘not any major mistake,’ former secretary Abu Alam Md Shahid Khan told New Age that for formality a gazette notification would have been good though.
‘This interim government was not formed in a peaceful situation; it was formed in the national interest following a student-people uprising. As there is no instruction in our constitution about such a situation, I find no problem with it,’ he said.
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