DHAKA, Nov. 17 (nsnewswire) — The country’s“disputed” polls-time cabinet will be sworn in Monday evening despite the  main opposition alliance’s threat to boycott elections slated for Jan. 24.

Cabinet Secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan made the announcement to media after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met President Abdul Hamid on Sunday night.

President Hamid is expected to administer oath to the new ministers at 3:00 p.m. (local time) Monday.

It was not immediately known who are going to be members of the polls-time cabinet.

Bangladesh ruling coalition has initiated its moves to form the all-party polls-time interim cabinet in line with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s proposal which she placed during her address to the nation last month.

Ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s main opposition alliance has already rejected Hasina’s all-party polls-time government proposal.

Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its 17 allies including key Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party since last Sunday morning have enforced the third long strike in a series which was for 84 hours, demanding a non-party government to oversee elections.

Khaleda has asked Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League (AL) party to bring back a caretaker system, or else it won’t participate in the next polls because it fears an election without the caretaker government will not be free and fair.

Bangladesh’s government ministers on Nov. 11 submitted their resignation letters to Prime Minister  Hasina ahead of the cabinet reshuffle as part of the formation of an all-party interim government to conduct the parliament polls slated for early 2014.

In the cabinet meeting on Nov. 5, all ministers reportedly decided that they will resign in the next seven days to pave the way for the formation of the all-party polls-time government headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

During the meeting with Hamid on Sunday night Hasina was expected to submit the resignation letters of the ministers and state ministers, who would not get positions in the new cabinet, to the president.

Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its 17 allies have been waging movement to press home its demand for the restoration of the non- party caretaker government system to oversee the national elections slated for January 24, 2014.

The parliament is due to expire on Jan. 24 next year and elections reportedly should be held within 90 days before its expiry.

The South Asian country’s two arch rivals who alternately ruled Bangladesh for more than the last couple of decades held phone talks on Oct. 26, the first direct conversation between the two leaders since January, 2009 when Hasina cabinet took oath of office.

Although both the parties are seeking dialogue to end impasse over the formation of the polls-time government, but no headway is being made so far.

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