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Ministers stay put

PM insists they only expressed 'intent to resign'

Staff Correspondent
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday claimed that her cabinet ministers will remain in their posts until the president accepts their resignation letters.
"Our ministers have just expressed their intent to resign," she said while addressing a function at Nawab Ali Chowdhury' Senate Building of Dhaka University.
All 52 ministers and state ministers submitted
their resignation on Monday to pave the way for formation of an all-party interim cabinet to oversee the next parliamentary' polls.
At the function, the premier explained the current status of the ministers when the topic of their resignation and participation in the affairs of the government drew huge flak from different quarters.
The government's announcement that the PM will decide on the
FROM PAGE 1
ministers' resignations has sparked the controversy, as the constitution leaves no room for the premier to do anything about a minister's resignation once it is submitted, say some legal experts.
The office of a minister other than the PM shall be vacant if he resigns from office by handing over resignation letter to the PM for submission to the president, according to article 58( 1) (a) of the constitution.
They keep doing their ministerial jobs, like participating in the cabinet meeting, amid widespread controversy over their authority to do so and their current status after tendering resignation.
Addressing the programme at the Dll senate building, Hasina said there will be a small cabinet when the general election
comes closer to the due date.
"We could have dissolved the cabinet. But without doing so, when I asked them | ministers], they submitted their resignation letters," the PM said.
She claimed that as per the constitution, the prime minister has the right to reshuffle the cabinet by excluding someone or inducting some new faces.
"So, as a prime minister I will decide whom I will keep and whom I will drop from the cabinet, and will then send recommendations to the president for his approval," the premier said.
Mentioning the resignation of former state minister for home Tanjim Ahmad Sobel Taj, she said, "He [Sohel| resigned from his post, but I did not accept it then. He continued holding his post until I accepted the resigna-
tion."
The premier said that nothing has happened outside the constitution. She alleged that a section of people are spreading confusion without being fully aware of the matter.
Hasina also criticised the participants of television talk shows for their comments in this regard.
"We want the continuation of democracy and, at the same time, we do not want to leave any space through which anyone can take over the state power unconstitutionally," she told her audience.
The premier also said, "We want to establish a good system for the future generation under which the elections will be held."
No fair elections had been held in Bangladesh after the killing of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman on August 15, 1975, she said.
"Why there will be an electoral system on ad hoc basis again and again?" she said in an oblique reference to the BNP's demand for restoration of a non-party caretaker government.
The next election will be held following the current constitutional guidelines, she added.
Hasina thanked the Dll teachers and students for taking to the streets to protest against the past military-backed caretaker government.
"As you had built the movement, we got democracy and elections back," she said mentioning that the Dll played a key role in every democratic movementsince 1948.
Before attending the function, the premier inaugurated six new buildings, including one dormitory for students, at the Dll campus.
University Grants Commission Chairman Prof AK Azad Chowdhury, Dll Vice Chancellor Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, among others, spoke.
PM ARRIVES IN COLOMBO
Hasina arrived in Colombo yesterday afternoon on a two-day official visit to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, 2013, reports UNB.
Sri Lankan Power and Energy Minister Poravithra Devi Wannia Rachchi
and Bangladesh High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Md Sufiur Rahman received Hasina at the airport.
Earlier, a special flight of Biman carrying the premier and her 47-member entourage took off from Shahjalal International Airport at about 2:10 pm.