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Shirin likely to stay as Speaker

Mahmud AU may get foreign ministry

Partha Pratim Bhattacharjee
Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury is likely to be re-elected as the speaker of the 10th parliament while foreign minister of the polls-time cabinet Abul Hassan Mahmud Ali might continue with the office.
Amid all these possibilities, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is still looking for a party leader with decent track record to handover the charge of the home ministry.
On Tuesday night, the premier at an Awami League Parliamentary Board meeting in her official residence Gono Bhaban hinted Shirin's second term as the Speaker, said meeting sources.
The meeting also decided to elect MPs for the reserved seats before the first session of the new parliament slated for January 29. The PM told her colleagues that if the elections to the reserved seats were done before the first session there would be no obstacles to electing the Speaker, the sources added.
For the 9th parliament, Shirin was elected as the Speaker from a reserved seat. This time the practice may be repeated as she had not been elected lawmaker through the January 5 elections.
Sources said the election to the reserved seats might be completed before January 26.
Previously, there had been speculations that Shirin might get the charge of the foreign ministry.
Meanwhile, the immediate past foreign minister AH Mahmud Ali runs the highest probability of getting the foreign ministry, sources in Awami League said.
Mahmud Ali is not yet an MP, as polling in 57 out of 120 centres in his constituency Dinajpur-4 were postponed due to violence on the election day. The re-election to the constituency is being held today.
On January 12, Hasina formed her new cabinet but did not assign anyone for the home and foreign ministries. So far, both the ministries got state ministers.
The PM had offered her party General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam the foreign and home ministries, but he refused both and chose the LGRD and cooperatives ministry.
Sources said the premier was still pursuing Ashraf to take charge of the foreign ministry.
The PM had also offered the home ministry to her party advisory council member Tofail Ahmed. But he too declined to take the charge and went for the commerce ministry. Tofail was commerce minister during AL's tenure in 1996-2001.
Sources said the PM was now looking for an apt candidate with clean image for the home ministry.
Meanwhile, Tuesday's AL parliamentary board meeting decided to pick more candidates for the reserved seats from the districts that had been getting less attention from the party.
It also agreed to give priority, in terms of nominating MPs for the reserved seats, to the wives of those party leaders who had been deprived of nominations in the January 5 polls. Fresh faces would also get the privilege.
Yesterday, Awami League started selling nomination papers from its party president's Dhanmondi office. The sale will continue until January 17 while interview of the aspirants would be held in the next parliamentary board meeting on January 19.
As many as 209 aspirants bought nomination papers yesterday. Each nomination