AL allies express mixed reaction over not making it to the cabinet

Leaders of Awami League-led alliance on Monday expressed mixed reactions on having no member in the newly formed cabinet as ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers took oath at Bangabhaban on the day.
President Md Abdul Hamid administered oath of a 47-members cabinet led by prime minister Sheikh Hasina. 
The new cabinet is the cabinet of the Awami League, Workers Party of Bangladesh president Rashed Khan Menon said, adding, ‘Nobody from us was informed about the new cabinet.’ 
Menon, also social welfare minster of the immediate past cabinet, told New Age, that the issue of the formation of the cabinet was not discussed in the meetings of the AL-led alliance.
Everybody expected that there would be representation of the alliance partners in the new cabinet, he said.
The issue of dropping alliance leaders from the new cabinet would be discussed in the meeting of the alliance and the Awami League, he said, adding that the main partner would give an explanation of it.
Samyabadi Dal general secretary Dilip Barua said that they were not unhappy for not having any alliance representative in the new cabinet.
‘We have formed the alliance on the basis of an ideology with the hope of forming a non-communal, democratic Bangladesh,’ Dilip said.
He hoped that the leader of the alliance and Awami League president Sheikh Hasina would consider and include some members from the alliance in the cabinet in near future.
President of the Bangladesh Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, Sharif Nurul Ambia welcomed the new cabinet consisting of mostly young members.
Many new members of the cabinet might have to depend on the bureaucracy as they are inexperienced in their roles, he said.
Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal faction president and also information minister of the immediate past cabinet Hasanul Haq Inu could not be reached for comment.
AL’s major ally Jatiya Party, led by former military dictator HM Ershad, after securing 22 seats, is now willing to be in the opposition in parliament. Initially they wanted to be part the AL-led government as they contested the polls together as part of the grand alliance.
Neither Ershad nor his party’s senior co-chairman Raushan Ershad, also leader of the opposition in the 10th parliament, was present at Monday’s oath taking ceremony.
 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net