Five Jatiya Party ministers resigned from the government on Thursday. They submitted their resignations to party chairman HM Ershad on Thursday afternoon.
The ministers who resigned are health minister and JP chief HM Ershad’s wife Raushan Ershad, commerce minister GM Kader, civil aviation and tourism minister ABM Ruhul Amin Howlader, state minister for sports Mujibul Haq Chunnu, and state minister for women’s affairs Salma Islam. Party general secretary ABM Ruhul Amin Howlader announced this at a press conference at Ershad’s Baridhara residence.
On Tuesday, Ershad had formally announced that his party would boycott the 10th Parliamentary elections.
In response to a query, Howlader stated that two other JP leaders — water resources minister Anisul Islam Mahmud and the Prime Minister’s adviser Ziauddin Bablu — would submit their resignations soon.
“The party chairman will submit the resignation letters to the honourable President on his return home,” Howlader added. The President, who is currently in Singapore for a medical check-up, is likely to return on Friday.
Speculation was rife about the JP ministers’ resignations this day after three Jatiya Party ministers, including Ershad’s wife Raushan, went to the Prime Minister’s Office to express their party’s stand over quitting the election-time Cabinet and the January 5 polls.
When the JP ministers left Prime Minister Sheik Hasina’s office for Ershad’s residence without submitting their resignation letters to the PM, there was considerable speculation whether the former president would stick to his earlier stance to quit the Cabinet or not.
When the JP ministers were holding their meeting with the Prime Minister, communications minister Obaidul Quader said he was hopeful that the Jatiya Party would reverse its decision. Though they left the Prime Minister’s Office without submitting their resignations, they handed their papers to Ershad after reaching his residence, dashing Obaidul Quader’s hopes that the Jatiya Party would not pull out of the government and would participate in the elections.
“It is still not the time to say that Jatiya Party will not come. We hope they will,” Obaidul Quader said on Thursday. He said the Jatiya Party’s final decision on its participation in the polls would become clear after December 13, the last date for withdrawal of nominations.
Ershad’s younger brother GM Kader, commerce minister in the Sheikh Hasina government, who had retained his portfolio in the reconstituted all-party poll-time government, went to the Secretariat in Dhaka in his flag car on Thursday. In the evening, he went to Ershad’s residence to submit his resignation letter to the chairman.
Meanwhile, Ershad asked his party supporters at his stronghold of Rangpur to be on their toes so that they could organise protests if he is arrested.
“Why are the police and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) at my residence? Keep yourselves ready. If I give any directive, follow it. And those who have submitted nomination papers, withdraw those,” he told the party’s rank and file, who had congregated at the Jatiya Party’s Rangpur district office on Thursday, over cell phone.
“Ershad, you have no fear, thousands of brothers are on the streets,” they cheered as they had been doing dutifully since 1991 when they went all out to vote for him to save their ‘chawwal’ (son) from the gallows.The party faithful brought out a procession led by district JP president Mashiur Rahman Ranga, which marched through the main thoroughfares of the dusty northern city. After Mashiur Rahman Ranga’s speech, the former president spoke over telephone to his supporters, encouraging them to stand firmly behind him.
Extra security has been mounted around Ershad’s villa, the President’s Park, since Wednesday, shortly after Ershad declared he was pulling out his candidates. The ministers claimed they were not feeling secure about contesting the polls amidst the violent campaign by the BNP-led 18-Party Alliance. They demanded that the polls schedule be cancelled and elections held under a non-partisan caretaker government. In another development, two JP candidates, KM Zahid and Advocate Mia Mohammad Rezaul, who had submitted nominations to contest from the Kushtia-3 (Sadar upazila) and Kushtia-4 constituencies respectively, withdrew their candidatures on Wednesday, reports our Kushtia correspondent.
-With The Independent input
