Amid murmurs of Syed Ashraful Islam being relieved of LGRD portfolio, the cabinet secretary says he has no news of any shakeup.
I do not have anything to say on this, Md Musharraf Hussain Bhuiyan told Media on Tuesday.

The Cabinet Division carries out all secretarial activities including changes in the Cabinet.

Several media ran reports without citing any source that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had ordered to remove LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Ashraf at the ECNEC meeting held earlier in the day.

“The prime minister has said it will be better to remove him (Ashraf) since he does not attend meetings,” Dr Shamsul Alam, Planning Commission’s General Economics Department Member, who was at the meeting, told bdnews24.com.

Ashraf, who has been at the helm of the LGRD (local government and rural dvelopment) ministry for the last seven years, was absent at the ECNEC meeting.

The Awami League general secretary is the son of national leader Syed Nazrul Islam.

He came to prominence during the 2007 emergency when most of the party’s central leaders were incarcerated.

Ashraf was elected the party’s general secretary in 2009 after being sworn in as the LGRD minister.

He retained his portfolio after the party returned to power last year.

The MP from Kishoreganj-1 constituency had also been the general secretary of Bangladesh Chhatra League’s Mymensingh unit.

He went to Britain after the killing of four national leaders in 1975 following the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Returning home in 1996, he contested the parliamentary election and won.

Hasina made him a state minister for civil aviation and tourism in her first government.

He has won all general elections since 1996.