Cabinet Secretary brushes off murmurs of ministerial shakeup

Amid murmurs of Syed Ashraful Islam being relieved of LGRD portfolio, the cabinet secretary says he has no news of any shakeup.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 7 July 2015, 10:51 AM
Updated : 9 July 2015, 10:44 AM

“I do not have anything to say on this,” Md Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told reporters on Tuesday.

The Cabinet Division carries out all secretarial activities including changes in the Cabinet.

Several media ran reports without citing any source that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had ordered to remove LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Ashraf at the ECNEC meeting held earlier in the day.

“The prime minister has said it will be better to remove him (Ashraf) since he does not attend meetings,” an official, who was at the meeting, told bdnews24.com asking not to be named.

Cabinet Secretary Md Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan. File photo

Several Bangladesh media went crazy over the rumour of Syed Ashraful Islam, the second man in Awami League, being dropped from Cabinet. File photo

Ashraf, who has been at the helm of the LGRD (local government and rural dvelopment) ministry for the last seven years, was absent at the ECNEC meeting.

The Awami League general secretary is the son of Syed Nazrul Islam, acting president of the government in exile.

He came to prominence during the 2007 emergency when most of the party’s central leaders were incarcerated.

Ashraf was elected the party’s general secretary in 2009 after being sworn in as the LGRD minister.

He retained his portfolio after the party returned to power last year.

The MP from Kishoreganj-1 constituency had also been the general secretary of Bangladesh Chhatra League’s Mymensingh unit. 

He went to Britain after the killing of four national leaders in 1975 following the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Returning home in 1996, he contested the parliamentary election and won. 

Hasina made him a state minister for civil aviation and tourism in her first government.

He has won all general elections since 1996.

Ashraf went to Kishoreganj on Tuesday and attended an Iftar hosted by the local Awami League unit.

But he avoided journalists, Kishoreganj correspond said.

He will spend the night at the circuit house, his itinerary says.

Ashraf will attend a programme of the district Awami League unit on Wednesday and an Iftar hosted by the party’s local unit.