Sayeed Muhammad of DOT :
Sheikh Hasina for the fourth time took oath as prime minister of Bangladesh yesterday, which is her third on the trot since 2009, reports The Daily Star.
After the development, the new ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers— all from the ruling Awami League– were also sworn-in to the cabinet as the first step towards formation of Sheikh Hasina’s third consecutive government.
President Abdul Hamid administered the oath to the batch of new ministers – comprising mostly of new faces – at the premier’s official residence Bangabhaban in Dhaka yesterday afternoon.
Cabinet Secretary M Shafiul Alam moderated the ceremony. The functionalities started at 3:30pm with recitation from the Holy Quran.
The names of the cabinet members have already been publicised. In total, there are 47 ministers, state ministers and deputies.
Later in the day, the newly-formed Cabinet Division published a gazette distributing portfolios among the new cabinet members, causing the outgoing cabinet to get abolished.
This new cabinet will not see most of its previous members including some heavyweight ones and those from alliance members of the ruling coalition.
Hasina dropped 34 of the 47 ministers, including Awami League bigwigs Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed, Mohammed Nasim and Matia Chowdhury, to induct 27 new faces and four former ministers in the 47-member council of ministers.
For the first time in 22 years, the new council of ministers will be a single-party one.
Moreover, four of them — Abdur Razzaque, Dipu Moni, Hasan Mahmud and Begum Monnuzan Sufian– were members of the Hasina-led cabinet in 2009-2014.