Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Saturday said that the price hike of essential commodities, fuel oils, gas and electricity had put an additional, severe burden on people.
He made the remarks while speaking at a commemoration programme for late BNP leader Tariqul Islam at the Institution of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh in Dhaka.
He alleged that the government in a planned way turning the country into a ‘failed state’.
‘The government is taking mega development projects with foreign loans which will push the country in a debt trap in future,’ he said.
He said that the abrupt increase in the prices of liquefied petroleum gas, diesel and kerosene were also a part of the ‘government conspiracy’ to divert people’s attention.
The prices have been increased at a time when people started talking about their various rights, including the voting rights.
He said that there was no alternative to street movements.
‘The only way to save ourselves from the repression is to oust the Awami League government from power,’ he said, adding that people must take to streets to establish a ‘people’s government’.
He said that the government was trying to divert the attention of people by ‘creating’ issues one after another.
About the violence related to the ongoing local body polls, Fakhrul said that 84 people had been killed in electoral violence in the past seven months.
‘All of them are from the ruling Awami League as they are now engaging themselves in infighting as there is no opposition party in the elections,’ he added.
BNP leaders Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, Selima Rahman and Nitai Roy Chowdhury, among others, spoke at the programme.
Former minister Tariqul Islam, also a former standing committee member of the BNP, died on November 4, 2018.
