Bangladesh interim govt to decide President's fate after talks with political parties

Dhaka: Bangladesh interim government on Thursday said it would decide the fate of President Muhammad Shahabuddin after consultations with political parties, amid controversy over his comments that raised questions on Sheikh Hasina's resignation as prime minister.

According to an adviser to Muhammad Yunus, the head of the interim government, the council of advisers decided to hold discussions with the political parties on President Shahabuddin's fate.

"The council will decide based on the consensus of political parties," the Environment and Climate Change Affairs Adviser Syeda Rezwana Hassan was quoted as saying by the Bangla language daily Prothom Alo.

The issue of the president's removal came days after Shahabuddin told a Bangla newspaper that he did not receive Hasina’s resignation letter.

In his interview with the Bangla daily Manobzamin, Shahabuddin said he heard that Hasina had resigned as prime minister before she fled Bangladesh, but he does not have documentary evidence.

Despite numerous efforts, the president said he had failed to find any documents. “Perhaps she did not have the time,” Shahabuddin said.

Legal experts opine that the president’s statement mattered little amid existing reality after Hasina’s ouster and the dissolution of parliament.

Several hundred protesters on Tuesday tried to storm the presidential palace, demanding President Shahabuddin’s resignation for his comments.

The army troops had to intervene to maintain the law and order.

Anti-Discrimination Students Movement, the platform that led the mass upsurge to topple the Hasina regime on August 5, on Tuesday set a deadline for Shahabuddin’s removal in seven days as they laid a five-point demand with the first being scrapping of Bangladesh’s 1972 Constitution.

A three-member delegation of former prime minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) met Yunus on Tuesday and asked him to be careful against the creation of any constitutional crisis afresh.

Information ministry affairs adviser Nahid Islam, also a leader of the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement, said whether or not the President would remain in office was not a constitutional matter but a political decision.