There has recently been a cabinet reshuffle with a few intakes and changing others’ portfolio. No head rolled nor has there been marching order for any one. Such exercise took place also earlier causing no stir in the country. A small reshuffle usually goes unnoticed by those not concerned. It’s a routine function of the government occasionally to shuffle or reshuffle the ministers for reasons know only to the insiders. But this time, it has created a real fuss over this minor matter making it the staple of countrywide political discourse. An animated debate is presumably sparked by the purposelessness of a cabinet expansion at this stage and the refusal of two veterans who were offered slots in the cabinet but declined to accept it.

The government better understand the purpose of cabinet expansion at the fag end of its tenure. We have no business to make that an issue. As regard the refusal of the ministry by Rashed Khan Menon and Tofail Ahmed — one is bound by the decision of his party’s Politburo and the case of another merits some elaboration. Though the truth of the matter belongs entirely to Tofail, I always hold in high esteem.

During the AL’s last council meeting soon after Sheikh Hasina’s landslide of 2008 when on assumption of power she resolved to come out of the shadow of her colleagues and close political companions of her illustrious father, she chose to act decisively to create an impression that she was more than equal among them.

The first thing she already imitated in the direction was to clip the wings of AL veterans thought to be her potential opponents in a power game in future. She had throughout been circumspect about them, and now they were suspected to be in complicity with the authors and planners of her political elimination through the so-called minus-two formula during the last caretaker dispensation.

As a result, these veterans — dubbed as reformists — have been made ineffective in framing policies and taking decisions by being dumped in so-called adviser council. Condemned along with them were also some of the promising leaders of the upcoming generation. Flummoxed at the fate of heroes of yesteryears, political observers as well as umpteen rank and file members of the party appeared to be wondering whether it was a step towards consigning them to oblivion.

The ignored lot could have inadvertently put their feet in their mouths when grilled by interrogators after 1/11. Even the AL supreme is not oblivious of their ordeal. Yet, to her, their behaviour in custody smacked of conspiracy. So, why shouldn’t replace the doubtful ones and surround herself with loyalists? Bangabandhu’s fate at the hands of some of his close colleagues might have spurred her calculation. The experiences of the past have taught her that there are few places for compassion in power politics, and a smoldering fire left uncared often proves to be fatal. So, she perhaps wisely refused to entertain dissidence in the party.

Intra-party cold war over who will dominate and the relative positions of the top leaders are unavoidable in all political outfits. It is only apt to think even the AL was not immune from it — which is why a compliant Abdul Jalil and not an assertive Tofail Ahmed embellished for long the post of party’s secretary general.

However, the prime minister’s problems emanate from doubtful provenance, i.e. her jumbo-sized cabinet and a feuding bureaucracy, neither of which proved to be a doer even in doable things during the last four years. As a result the hiatus between the election promises and the achievements is fast widening and this is what causes concern. The remaining incumbency for another one year will not, in all probability, deliver neither can it be peaceful.

However, the AL veterans and their admirers should not be disappointed at their ups and downs in politics. They must not give up truths that they adhered to during their tumultuous political careers.

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Brig (retd) M Abdul Hafiz is a former DG of BIISS.