Desk Report
Publish: 26 Jul 2022, 10:11 pm
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir || Photo: Collected
BNP
Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Tuesday said it is impossible
for any Election Commission to hold a credible election defying the
instructions of a polls-time partisan government.
“I do
not want to talk about the Election Commission. Our point is clear that there
can never be a free and fair election under a partisan government,” he said.
Speaking
at a press conference, at BNP Chairperson’s Gulshan office, the BNP leader also
said Awami League has retained power for three terms in a row by introducing
“electoral autocracy under cover of democracy.”
“Many
political scientists call it a hybrid regime that ultimately deprived people of
their voting rights...under a partisan government, the Election Commission
doesn’t have the scope to hold credible elections going beyond the instructions
of that administration,” he said.
Fakhrul
made the remarks as journalists drew his attention to Chief Election
Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal’s comment that the next election will be held as
per the law unlike the national election held in 2018 as the current commission
has come to deliver on its promises, not to make a U-turn.
Fakhrul
also disclosed the outcomes of a virtual meeting of the BNP standing committee
held on Monday.
He said
their meeting elaborately discussed load shedding and the dire crisis in the
power sector that has made public life miserable.
The BNP
leader said their policymakers think the power outages are badly affecting the
production in industry and agriculture alongside adversely affecting the
economy.
“The
meeting felt that this deadlock in the power sector has been created due to
installation of power plants in excess of demand by the government ignoring the
rules and regulations only to protect interests of its own businessmen, serious
corruption in giving opportunities for setting up quick rental power plants,
the expenditure of a lot of money in the name of capacity charges.”
He said
though the 19 quick rental power stations--set up under the government's
special law--were supposed to be closed long ago, they are still in operation
unnecessarily. “A good number of rental power plants are getting huge sums of
money as capacity charges even though they are not producing any power.
The BNP
leader also alleged that the government has to pay Tk54,000 crore to the rental
power plants for three years without the generation of electricity.
“Around
Tk42,000 crore went into the pockets of the government-baked traders. The
government paid a total of $8.54 billion dollars as capacity charges over the
last one decade. Signing deals with many power plants without properly
determining the demand for electricity, the government has created an
opportunity for corrupt traders to loot,” the BNP standing committee observed.
Referring
to Tk 2.18 lakh crores state debt in the power sector, they said "Foreign
debt in the sector is Tk 1.97 lakh crores. This loan will have to be repaid
with interest over the next 30 years from 2024, which will be taken from
people's pockets."
Referring
to recent statistics of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the meeting
said the country witnessed a nine-year high 7.56 per cent inflation in June of
FY 2021-22. “Alongside the 42 per cent poverty rate, a fresh five lakh people
are falling below the poverty line because of the unelected government’s wrong
economic policy."
The BNP
policymakers alleged that though the incomes of a quarter of politicians and
businesspeople belonging to the ruling party have increased abnormally, the
middle-class, lower-middle-class people, the peasants and the workers are
getting poorer due to the government’s policy of plundering. “A stark income
disparity has been created, leading to serious economic instability.”
Fakhrul
said their meeting criticised the BGB Director General (DG) for his silence on
the comment of the BSF DG that most of the Bangladeshis killed in BSF firing
along the Bangladesh-India border were criminals. “The meeting feels that
firing at the border is a violation of human rights. Even the criminals have
the right to get justice.”
He said
the BNP standing committee demanded a clear statement from the government on this
matter._UNB
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