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No share in govt failures

Menon tells ®he Jatly ^tar; says his party decided a year ago not to join govt

Reaz Ahmad
The Workers Party of Bangladesh at a meeting of its politburo on September 15 last year decided not to join this government.
Exactly a year after, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
FROM PAGE 1 wanted to induct Rashed Khan Menon, chief of the Workers Party, a component of the Awami-League-led 14-party ruling alliance, into her cabinet but he declined to accept the offer.
Talking to The Daily Star at his party central office in the capital on Saturday, Menon explained why he refused to be in the Hasina cabinet.
"You see, our September 15, 2011 resolution was no secret. The media published our stance. And more importantly, we also conveyed our position to the major partner in our ruling coalition -- the Awami League," said Menon.
Referring to his latest meeting with Hasina, also president of the AL, in the third week of last month, Menon recalled, "I reiterated the Workers Party position that the 14-party alliance must be made functional first. And there were no hints of our participation in the cabinet."
He made it clear again that induction of someone from a coalition partner into the cabinet must be preceded by a "political process” and it just can't be a surprise phone call from a cabinet secretary.
Menon and AL stalwart Tofail Ahmed declined to accept berth in the cabinet that Hasina reshuffled for the fourth time on Thursday by taking in seven ministers and state ministers.
Recollecting the back-
ground and circumstances in which the Workers Party took the September 15 resolution, Menon said, "We found out the promises the AL-led alliance had made before the public. But with time passing out, it drifted away gradually from rising up to those promises. There was no respite in extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances, and we saw government leniency towards politicisation, partisanship, illegal grabbing and financial and tender-related scams.”
He went on, "There is no denying that it's the prime minister's prerogative to form cabinet. But when a government comes into being through a joint movement by a political coalition, cabinet reshuffles need to follow some sort of political process."
The Workers Party chief recalled that even when GM Kader and Dilip Barua ( from two components of the ruling alliance) were made ministers "We (coalition partners) were not consulted."
Inviting him (Menon) to take a cabinet post without having any political consultation, Menon said, "embarrassed both of us, both me and the prime minister. This could have been avoided."
He mentioned that the 14-party alliance was formed with the goals of waging movement together, participating in elections together and running the
government together. "While the first two jobs we accomplished together, we failed to do the same in running the government together."
The Workers Party president said he just couldn't recall when the 14-party had its last meeting. "It was a decision that the coalition would sit once a month and discuss the affairs of the government, among other things. But it was never followed."
He blamed the AL for "not being serious" about holding meetings of the alliance and expanding its base among the grassroots.
That's why, said Menon, they (the smaller components of the alliance) shrugged off the responsibilities of all the wrongdoings, scams, bad governance and failures of the government. He also insisted that without following any political consultation process, just reshuffling the cabinet would do no good to the government that has got a little over one year of its tenure.
Asked why they are still in such a ruling coalition, Menon said, "We strongly feel the need for this alliance (14-party) to prevent the BNP-Jamaat alliance from making a comeback to power. We're still pressing the top leadership of our alliance to make the combine functional. Otherwise, unity of non-communal democratic forces will come under threat.”