New faces in the Cabinet don’t mean that the ministers of the previous administration failed to do their job, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said before adding that she will “strictly monitor” the new ministers.
Her remarks came on Tuesday (Jan 8) while addressing the new Cabinet, which was sworn in the previous day, and members of the Awami League’s Working Committee at the Ganabhaban.
After the astonishing landslide in the 11th national parliamentary polls, the Awami League chief formed a cabinet of 47 members. Twenty-four of the ministers are new to the cabinet.
The new administration has dropped 34 members of the previous cabinet.
She left out many senior leaders of her own party and allies while picking ministers for the new government.
“Introducing new faces in the Cabinet doesn’t necessarily mean members of the last administration failed. The country has marched forwarded because they had succeeded. The move to bring new people in the administration aims to prepare the next generation,” said Hasina, who is serving as the prime minister for an unprecedented fourth time.
The prime minister said that the new Cabinet members will be “strictly monitored”.
“The new ministers have to know and understand their responsibilities and then work to carry on their predecessors’ success,” she said.
Hasina said she was anxious ahead of the 11th national election before adding that if the BNP-Jamaat clique managed to return to power there would have been genocide, adds UNB.
"They would just unleash ‘genocide’,” the news agency quoted her saying.
The Awami League chief said that BNP-Jamaat activists acted like Pakistan’s occupational forces after the 2001 election.
"They raped our girls and women just for casting their votes for Awami League. There was no place left where the BNP-Jamaat men had not unleashed their reign of terror," she was quoted saying by UNB.
If the BNP-Jamaat had somehow managed to come back to power this time "they would do what the Pakistani forces did here in 1971," said Hasina.
Talking about her party’s landslide victory in the election, the Prime Minister said this has been possible as the party picked its candidates judiciously, according to the UNB report.
The Awami League chief said she conducted several surveys involving foreign organisations before finally choosing the candidates.
On the BNP's debacle, Hasina said nomination trade cost the party dearly coupled with undecided leadership of the Jatiya Oikya Front. "They failed to pick eligible candidates for the election as they put their seats on auction."