PM annoyed at Syed Ashraf Rumours spread over removal of Ashraf

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has expressed her displeasure at the repeated absence of local government, rural development and cooperatives minister Syed Ashraful Islam from crucial meetings.
The prime minister expressed her anger on Tuesday at the meeting of the Executive Committee of National Economic Council as Syed Ashraful skipped the meeting and the preparation of a summary for his removal.
‘The prime minister has said it will be better to remove him [Ashraf] since he does not attend meetings,’ an official said after the
ECNEC meeting with Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
After the meeting it was rumoured throughout the day that Syed Ashraful was being removed from the ministry.
Syed Ashraful Islam, however, advised journalists not to pay heed to rumours following media reports about his removal.
‘I know nothing…It is better you do not pay heed to any rumours,’ Ashraful told journalists while attending an iftar party in Kishoreganj.
The Cabinet Division reportedly sent a summary to the Prime Minister’s Office in the afternoon to relieve Syed Ashraful of the ministry making him a minister without portfolio, following the prime minister’s instruction, said officials concerned.
The cabinet reshuffle was now pending for the approval of the prime minister as she had kept the file pending, said a senior official at the Cabinet Division.
Cabinet secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, however, said that he was not aware of any such move.
The ECNEC meeting at the planning commission was scheduled to review a proposal by the local government division about a project involving Tk 6,076.44 crore.
Ashraful, who has been holding the portfolio of the local government ministry for the last seven years, told a television channel in Kishoreganj on Tuesday evening that all were rumours and he had already talked to the prime minister.
Several ministers said that the prime minister might replace Ashraful with expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain.
They also said that Hasina was unhappy as Ashraful hardly attended his ministry.
This would be the first reshuffle in the cabinet since the present government of Awami League assumed office following the January 5, 2014 elections boycotted by all the opposition political parties.
Ashraful, son of Syed Nazrul Islam who was the president of the government in exile during the 1971 war of independence and was killed in jail on November 3, 1975, was elected the party’s general secretary in 2009 after being sworn in as the local government minister.
He went to Britain after the killing of four top Awami League leaders including his father in jail on November 3, 1975 following the assassination of founding president of the country Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Returning home in 1996, he contested the parliamentary election and won from Kishoreganj-1 constituency.

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