Nurul Islam BSc has taken oath as minister in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Cabinet in the first shakeup since she returned to power in January last year.
Published : 14 Jul 2015, 06:43 PM
State ministers Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and Yeafesh Osman have become full ministers.
They took oath at the swearing-in ceremony conducted by President Md Abdul Hamid at the Bangabhaban on Tuesday evening.
MPs Tarana Halim and Nuruzzaman Ahmed were also sworn in as new state ministers.
Hasina and other Cabinet members, including AMA Muhith, Amir Hossain Amu and Matia Chowdhury, were present at the ceremony.
Even though rumours of the Cabinet reshuffle were swirling over the past few days, the government kept the development under wraps.
The new ministers were only confirmed on Tuesday afternoon when their names were seen written on the seats in the oath-taking ceremony at the presidential palace.
Former lawmaker Islam arrived at the Bangabhaban around 4pm.
Reserved seat MP Tarana, Yeafesh and Lalmonirhat-2 MP Nuruzzaman came around an hour later while Kamal arrived around 5:30pm.
The prime minister entered the Darbar Hall of the Bangabhaban around 6:20pm, minutes before the ceremony started.
Nurul Islam, who owns and runs Sanowara Group, on Monday told bdnews24.com that the Cabinet Secretary had called him up and asked to be “ready”.
Islam, the vice-president of the ruling party’s Chittagong metropolitan unit, became an MP in 2008 from a city constituency as a rebel candidate.
He had to vacate the Chittagong-8 seat for Jatiya Party’s Ziauddin Ahmed Bablu in parliamentary elections last year.
Islam, a member of the commerce ministry standing committee in the previous Parliament, sits on the board of NCC Bank.
Tarana Halim also had received a call from the Cabinet secretary on Monday.
A relative of slain finance minister Shah AMS Kibria, she is a member of the parliamentary standing committee on information ministry.
In her teens, she won the ‘Notun Kurhi’ championship, a nationwide BTV talent hunt, and then went on to make a name for herself as an actress.
She was the women affairs secretary of the Awami Juba League when she studied at the Dhaka University. She was elected MP to reserved seats for women last year for a second time.
Awami League leader Nuruzzaman Ahmed was elected MP from the Lalmonirhat seat in the last parliamentary polls for the first time.
Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, who was made minister of home affairs, had earlier confirmed to bdnews24.com of getting the call for promotion.
Yeafesh Osman, made full minister on Tuesday, has been serving as the state minister for science and technology as a technocrat for the last seven years.
This was the first Cabinet shakeup after Sheikh Hasina formed government for a second consecutive time in January last year.
Hasina and her council of ministers were sworn in on Jan 12, 2014.
AH Mahmood Ali was given charge of the foreign ministry, while Nazrul Islam was made the state minister for water resources on Feb 26 that year.
Last year in October, then telecoms minister Abdul Latif Siddique was dropped from the Cabinet for his controversial remark on Hajj. He was subsequently expelled from the Awami League too.
Last week, Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain was given charge of the LGRD ministry after Sheikh Hasina removed Awami League General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam from that ministerial post.
Ashraf, however, was kept in the Cabinet as a minister without portfolio.
Until now, there were 29 ministers, 18 ministers of state and two deputy ministers.
The prime minister also has a special envoy who enjoys the rank and status of a minister and five advisers.