Hasina offers BNP position in cabinet

Sheikh Hasina... wooing the opposition

By Mizan Rahman/Dhaka

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday urged the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to join her polls-time cabinet and offered it any ministerial post it chooses.

Speaking at a programme in her official residence Ganabhaban, the Bangladesh prime minister urged the BNP to participate in the upcoming national elections.

“If you do not have faith in the elections, give the name of your candidates. You will be allowed to have any ministry you want.”

Prime Minister Hasina kept charge of the cabinet division, public administration ministry, defence ministry, and armed forces division for herself. These four key ministries can influence the results of the upcoming parliament polls.

Hasina’s offer came as uncertainty whether the main opposition, led by the BNP, will participate in polls guided by the newly-formed cabinet loomed large.

The BNP, however, disagreed to participate in polls under this cabinet, formed with current and former members of the Awami League-led coalition government that has ruled for the past five years.

The main opposition had sought a dialogue with President Abdul Hamid to end the current political stalemate.

However, the elections, as it appears, are taking place under the newly-formed polls-time cabinet amid disapproval of the BNP.

The opposition has threatened to ‘paralyse’ the country without polls in line with their demand.

Meanwhile, Anwar Hossain Manju, editor of mass circulation Bengali daily Ittefaq and chief of a faction of the Jatiya Party, has been made an adviser to Prime Minister Hasina in the ‘all-party’ cabinet.

He became Hasina’s 11th adviser.

Manju will enjoy the rank of a minister, according to a circular issued, cabinet division’s joint secretary Md Abdul Wadud said.

Two former technocrat ministers – Shafique Ahmed and Dilip Barua – who were dropped from the interim cabinet were made advisers to the prime minister.

On November 18, H M Ershad-led Jatiya Party’s presidium member Ziauddin Ahmed Bablu was inducted in the interim cabinet as Hasina’s adviser.

The four newly-appointed advisers have not been assigned responsibilities.

Manju, a former minister under Ershad’s autocratic regime, had served as a minister in Sheikh Hasina’s first cabinet (1996-2001).

He was the secretary general of Jatiya Party but later parted ways and floated a faction of its own called Jatiya Party(Manju).

On November 11, he told reporters after a meeting with ruling alliance that his party would contest the polls even if the opposition BNP stayed away.