Latif Siddique dropped from Cabinet

Abdul Latif Siddique has been dropped from the Cabinet and will not henceforth hold any position in government, Cabinet Secretary Md Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan has said.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 12 Oct 2014, 09:23 AM
Updated : 12 Oct 2014, 12:37 PM

Speaking to the press at the Secretariat on Sunday, Bhuiyan said: "A circular on the matter has been issued."

The announcement came after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met President Abdul Hamid at Bangabhaban on Sunday afternoon.

Siddique held several key portfolios like telecoms in Hasina's government.

After he decried Hajj and Tabligh as 'useless activity', a furore erupted across the country with Opposition parties and even some in the Awami League asking for his ouster for hurting the religious sentiment of Muslims.

The Prime Minister hinted to dropping him after her return from a long visit to the US and UK.

During a press conference on Oct 3, Sheikh Hasina said that Siddique will not be in her Cabinet.

She had then said the government will not be held to account for anyone's 'inconsiderate remarks'.

Siddique, who has been at the helm of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology, drew widespread condemnation after rubbishing the practice of Hajj and Tabligh Jamaat at a programme in New York on Sept 28.

A video clip of him making that statement kicked up a storm as it went viral on the internet and touched a few raw nerves within his party and beyond.

“So much manpower is wasted over the Hajj. Two million people are now in Saudi Arabia for the Hajj. They have no work or role in production. They only eat and go abroad using the country’s money,” Siddique was heard saying in the video.

Since then, over two dozen cases have been filed against the senior Awami League leader at different courts in several districts of Bangladesh, accusing him of hurting religious sentiments.

The BNP and many Islamist organisations demanded Siddique's immediate arrest. The BNP had also asked the government to punish him under the law.

In an interview given to BBC Bangla from Mexico later, Siddique had stood by his remarks.

“I made the comments on Hajj as a free and modern man,” he said.

Siddique, one of the most senior politicians, is known to be outspoken, and his snide remarks had often landed him in controversies in the past.

He did not even spare his younger brother Kader Siddiqui for “siding with war criminals”, saying the war hero was suddenly trying to become a 'Razakar', the militia that helped Pakistanis to prevent Bangladesh from emerging as a nation.

He has also been accused of beating up a Power Development Board engineer.

The five-time Tangail-4 MP was in charge of the textiles and jute ministry in the Awami League’s previous term.

He had opposed Sheikh Hasina becoming the Awami League president in the 1980s while she was in exile. Again, he was a strong voice in her support during the military-backed regime in 2007.

Siddique was a favourite of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, an active participant in the six-point movement in 1966 and the mass uprising of 1969, frequently jailed throughout that decade, and an organiser during the Liberation War.

In 1964-65, he was elected the vice president of the Karatia Sadat College students' union as a Chhatra League leader.

After Bangabandhu’s murder, he was in jail for six years under the military regime. He was freed after his wife became an MP of the Ershad government.

During his term as textile minister, he wrote a letter to US Ambassador in Dhaka Dan Mozena tersely objecting to his asking managements to allow trade union rights in readymade garment factories.