Bongo-news.com: Three Jatiya Party leaders, two Awami League stalwarts and the chief of the Workers Party have been sworn in as ministers in the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,

 reports bdnews24.com.

Two Jatiya Party leaders have been sworn in as ministers of state.Senior Awami League leaders Tofail Ahmed and Mohammed Amir Hussain Amu, kept out of the regular cabinet for the last five years, have been included in the cabinet.Both are members of the Awami league advisory council.They were ministers in the 1996-2001 Sheikh Hasina cabinet but were not included when she came back to power in 2009.They had called for greater reforms and more ‘inner party democracy’ within the Awami League when the military-backed caretaker was in power.Both leaders faced huge criticism by supporters of Sheikh Hasina and were later left in the cold.However, both Tofail and Workers Party chief Rashed Khan Menon were offered cabinet berths last year, which they refused.It was not yet clear who among the 31 existing ministers and 19 ministers for state would be included in the all-party interim cabinet.The Jatiya Party leaders sworn in as ministers were Rowshan Ershad, Anisul Islam Mahmud, and Ruhul Amin Hawlader. Mujibul Haque Chunnu and Salma Islam were sworn in as ministers of state.Jatiya Party lawmaker from Chittagong, Anisul Islam Mahmud, was a former Foreign Minister during HM Ershad’s autocracy.Ruhul Amin Hawlader is a lawmaker from Barisal.Cabinet Secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan has already said the Prime Minister would hand over to the President the resignations of those left out from the new cabinet.The Cabinet Division will issue a gazette and the Prime Minister would distribute portfolios to the new cabinet members afterwards, Bhuiyuan had said.President Md Abdul Hamid administered the oath at the Bangabhaban’s Darbar Hall on Monday.On Sunday evening, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had informed the President of installing “a smaller cabinet” to supervise the national election.The President had endorsed and welcomed the plan. Hasina had proposed forming an ‘all-party’ government during her last month’s address to the nation.She had invited names from the Opposition BNP to be included in the interim administration.But the BNP refused to join the ‘all-party’ government, saying it was a prelude to an ‘one-party election’.The polls will have to be organised within Jan 24 , 2014 as per the Constitutional deadline.In 1991, the national election was held under a non-party interim government after the fall of military ruler HM Ershad.The BNP-led government passed a caretaker bill in the face of continuous agitation from the Opposition.Three elections — 1996, 2001, and 2008 — were supervised by the caretaker government.A caretaker government was required to organise the national election within 90 days but the last caretaker government, backed by the military, held office for nearly two years between 2006-2008.Both Hasina and Opposition Leader Khaleda Zia were thrown behind bars during that time.The Awami League-led government promptly scrapped the caretaker provision through the 15th constitutional amendment after a court declared the provision illegal and against the spirit of the Constitution.

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