AL silently working to sell out Bangladesh: BNP

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Thursday accused the Bangladesh Awami League government of working silently to sell out the country in a planned way and alleged that it is showing a knee-jerk policy towards India’s continued unjust activities against Bangladesh.

According to UNB news agency, BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi made the accusation at a press briefing at the party’s Naya Paltan central office.

He alleged that the government is making Bangladesh a crippled country by sacrificing the country’s interests only to appease another country.

“A country (India) is doing a serious injustice and unjust activities against us. Their planned interlinking project to divert the waters of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers will badly harm our country and put our geographical existence and ecology at stake,” he said.

Rizvi further said, “Not only that, one or two Bangladeshis are being killed every day along the border…the head of the government should register a strong protest against it, but she’s not doing it as the government has been subservient to the neighbouring country.”

Despite having no suitable infrastructure, the BNP leader said, the government has given India corridor facility in the name of transit allowing it to use the Ashuganj River Port with a lower tariff of Tk 192 per tonne.

He alleged that the government is covertly carrying out anti-state activities by keeping people’s attention concentrated on a messy situation created through militant activities, ‘crackdown on common people’ and extrajudicial killings’.

Rizvi alleged that the country’s sovereignty, independence, security and progress have been put at stake due to the government’s anti-state activities.

“As the government assumed power without people’s mandate, it hardly thinks twice taking any anti-people decision. Their economic policy is actually based on plundering. It has initiated works for selling the country in a planned way,” the BNP leader said.

About their party’s stance on India, he said BNP considers it a friendly neighbour and wants strong ties with the country, but it has to be based on equality and mutual respect.

Rizvi said the government is now trying to increase the gas tariff to plunder public money.

Mentioning that gas tariff was raised in September last year, he said there is no scope for increasing gas price twice in a year as per the rules of Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission.

“The efforts to increase the gas tariff have reflected this regime’s naughty attitude,” Rizvi observed.

He urged the government to shelve its plan to hike gas price for the sake of common people who are already struggling to cope with the unusual prices of daily essentials.

The BNP leader also warned that their party will come up with strong action programmes if the gas tariff is increased.