DAILY DAWN
28th August 1958
AL TO JOIN CENTRAL CABINET?
The Awami League is likely to join the Central Cabinet, a source close to the Awami League High Command said in Karachi lastnight. The source said that the proposal to join the Cabinet was being considered by the party to “counter-act the intriguing moves of the KSP.
The Awami League Parliamentary party having a strength of 14 members in the National Assembly is at present out of the Noon Cabinet though a component unit of the coalition. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, MP and General Secretary of the East Pakistan Awami League, who arrived in Karachi yesterday from Dacca to attend a meeting of the Accounts Committee, however, refused to comment on the issue. He told newsmen that the party chief, Mr. H. S. Suhrawardy, had been authorised to take whatever decision he deemed fit in this regard. Asked to comment on the possibility of KSP-Awami League Coalition, as suggested by Prime Minister Noon, he said there could not be any coalition with the KSP. He said that the Awami League commanded the confidence of the majority members in the East Pakistan Assembly and added: “I accept the KSP challenge to prove our majority.” Sheikh Mujibur Rahman added that beside attending the Accounts Committee meeting the main purpose of his visit to Karachi was to impress upon the Central Government the immediate need of financial aid to East Pakistan for relief to the people affected by current floods and drought. -APP.