Main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Friday urged all to take to the streets with courage just for a few days after the Durga puja to oust the government.
‘Everyone should come out in the streets. Let us take to the streets with courage for next few days only, not even a month to oust the government and restore rights of the people and democracy,’ he told a seminar on agriculture.
He said that the existence of the nation, the country and its independence would be at stake if the movement failed to remove the regime.
Mentioning that the ruling Awami League adopted a tactic of branding the BNP as violent, the BNP leader said termed the Awami League godfather of violence.
The Sonali Dal, a platform of pro-BNP teachers of Bangladesh Agricultural University in Mymensingh, organised the seminar on ‘Rocketing hike in farm Inputs and food products: woes of the peasantry and the people due to the government’s mismanagement’ at the Dhaka Reporters’ Unity.
The seminar was presided over by Sonali Dal president Professor Golam Hafeez Kennedy.
Fakhrul said that the AL government turned to country into a state of terror. ‘You [AL] want to remain in power by engaging the entire state machinery in a rule of terror,’ he said.
About the high prices of commodities, he said that in all countries prices increased to some extent, but the price hike in Bangladesh became unprecedented as the unaccountable government was in power.
Fakhrul said that the pressing issue of inflation was caused by the nexus of business oligarchs and the Awami League.
He said the mismanagement, corruption and lack of good governance reached such a stage where the spiralling price of commodities was suffocating the people almost to death.
The common people cannot buy essentials while Tk 365 crore is being spent on cars for the upazila nirbahi officers and deputy commissioners as bribes ahead of the election, said the BNP leader.
Professor Golam Hafeez presented a keynote at the seminar stating that the ruling party’s mismanagement resulted into a staggering Tk 4.0 trillion in defaulted loans and Tk 1.12 trillion in losses due to corruption and delays in major mega projects.
He pointed out that Tk 640 billion was laundered from Bangladesh annually and foreign loans exceeded Tk 1 trillion.
The prices of farm inputs, such as fertilisers, seeds, diesel and irrigation, have surged by 80-120 per cent in recent years, while food prices have seen a 40-150 per cent increase in just one year and a half.
The alarming inflation can be attributed to mismanagement, money laundering, a lack of good governance, accountability, transparency, government-backed oligarchy, and the absence of an electoral democratic environment, said in the keynote.
BNP standing committee member Abdul Moyeen Khan, advisors to BNP chairperson Professor Tazmery SA Islam, Abdul Awal Mintoo, Krishok Dal president Hasan Zafir Tuhin, and Sonali Dal general secretary Abul Kalam Azad also spoke, among others, at the event.
