Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has asked technocrat ministers to resign as part of a process to reconstitute the cabinet ahead of the parliamentary elections.
Published : 06 Nov 2018, 01:39 PM
“Though the technocrats have been instructed to resign, the other members of the cabinet will remain in office,” Awami League General Secretary and Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader told the media at the Ganabhaban.
Hasina is scheduled to hold a press conference on Nov 8 after wrapping up her talks with opposition leaders.
After the last shake-up in the cabinet in January, there were 30 ministers, 17 state ministers and two deputy ministers in the Hasina-led government.
Of them, Religious Affairs Minister Motiur Rahman, Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam, Science and Technology Minister Yeafesh Osman and Telecom and IT Minister Mustafa Jabbar are the technocrat ministers.
Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad is a special envoy with the rank of a minister to PM Hasina.
And the five advisers to the prime minister enjoy the rank of minister.
He could not say how the election-time government or cabinet will look.
He was yet to be informed officially about whether the cabinet will be downsized. Shafiul said he had not been told officially either about the order for the technocrat ministers to resign.
“It doesn’t take time. We will make a summary and it will return to us via the (president),” the secretary said about the formalities.
“We are ready for these,” he added.
The constitution does not offer a clear explanation of the election-time government.
Currently, the ruling party or coalition remains in power during the polls. Parliament is not dissolved but it does only routine jobs once the three-month countdown to elections starts.
Before the last general elections in 2014, Hasina had formed a smaller cabinet with leaders for the ruling Awami League’s allies.
The BNP and its partners had refused a proposal to join the so-called “All Party Government” and subsequently stayed away from the elections as their demand for a nonpartisan election-time government was not met.
The party has been demonstrating for the same demand ahead of the parliamentary elections now.
It has also joined a new alliance under Dr Kamal Hossain’s leadership.
The new alliance is scheduled to sit with Hasina on Wednesday in a second round of talks after it found “no specific solution” to the issues it had raised in the first round.