Hasina may induct veterans in cabinet

DHAKA - Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina may induct Awami League veterans to add experience and give a fresh look to her team in a mid-term cabinet reshuffle, a media report said Sunday.

She also hopes to respond to criticism from opposition parties and the vocal middle class over rising prices, power shortage and charges of corruption, The Daily Star said.

Hasina, who took power in a December 2008, had inducted a majority of first-timers into her government. Besides herself and Finance Minister A.M.A. Muhith, there were few experienced politicians in her team.

She left out several party veterans who were her contemporaries and had worked under her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Lawmakers Abdur Razzaque, Tofail Ahmed and Suranjit Sengupta, who were part of the 1971 movement that led to the birth of Bangladesh, are among the likely inductees.

Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, a lawyer-lawmaker and a young cousin of Hasina, could also find a place in the government.

She may bring back Tanjim Ahmad Sohel Taj, son of the country’s first prime minister Tajuddin Ahmad who resigned from the government in May 2009 following differences with other ministers.

An unnamed official of the prime ministers office said Hasina was seriously working on a major reshuffle but did not indicate a time frame.

Although she leads a 14-party political alliance, there are few nominees in her government from allies.

Hasina’s five-year term ends in 2013.