They speak of new force, but they are hostage to extremist groups: Debapriya Bhattacharya

Referring to the interim government, Debapriya Bhattacharya, Distinguished Fellow of CPD, said, "They spoke of a new force but ultimately became hostage to a small and radical group in many cases. As a result, they couldn''t behave appropriately. They couldn’t protect the citizens. Now, the question is whether they can conduct the elections impartially or not."

He said this at a press conference titled ‘Selected Policy Recommendations and Proposed National Programme for the Upcoming Government’, organised by the Citizen’s Platform for the implementation of the SDGs.

Debapriya Bhattacharya stated that the current interim government, which talked about reforms, failed to demonstrate the needed capacity, stakeholder participation, and openness to implement those reforms.

Criticizing the dialogue process where the government only focused on politicians, he mentioned that there was no presentation of ideas for new arrangements inclusive of stakeholders within a national resurgence, awakening, and participation.

Highlighting the lack of stakeholder opinion in the dialogue as a major issue at the press conference, Debapriya Bhattacharya pointed out two outcomes. Those who wanted to be architects of a new arrangement became a part of the old arrangement. They entered the electoral process and became part of the costly elections. At best, they raised funds through crowd-funding, but couldn''t reduce the expenditure.

As the second outcome of the problem, Debapriya Bhattacharya commented that vested interest groups, who were the carriers and bearers of the old order, have risen.

He said that after the mass uprising, the businessmen fled, the politicians went into hiding, and the bureaucrats returned. Because the biggest protector of this old arrangement is the bureaucracy, which returned. And the current interim government provided the biggest opportunity for the bureaucracy to return.

The press conference presented 12 policy statements and proposed a national programme for the upcoming government.

The policy recommendations were presented by CPD’s Distinguished Fellow Professor Mustafizur Rahman and the national programme was presented by CPD’s Additional Research Director Towfiqul Islam Khan.

Core group members of the Citizen’s Platform including Asif Ibrahim, Rasheda K Chowdhury, Shaheen Anam, and Sultana Kamal were present.