BNP: Wealth inequality increasing due to lack of democracy

BNP senior leader Nazrul Islam Khan on Wednesday said the disparity between the rich and the poor is widening gradually due to a lack of democracy in Bangladesh.

“If you think about the development of everyone, there is no way except democracy. As there is no democracy, a large number of people in the country are now crushed by rises in commodity prices while a handful of people are buying houses worth crores of taka,” he said.

Speaking at a doa mahfil, the BNP leader also alleged that only 5% of the people are embezzling a huge amount of the country's wealth and money by indulging in corruption and looting.

Nazrul, a BNP standing committee member, said: “The 5% of people are given the scope to amass the ill-gotten money as the government does not need the support of the majority.”

“As a result, they do not believe in voting,” he added. 

“If votes were required [to form a government], they would have conducted a free and fair election, not a one-sided election like the January 7 one,” he observed.

Stating that there is no alternative to restoring people’s right to vote to get rid of such a situation in the country, the BNP leader urged everyone to get united to make opposition parties’ ongoing anti-government movement a success.

He said the country’s people established democracy by sacrificing their lives and blood by liberating the country through the Liberation War in 1971, adding: “That democracy does not exist now in Bangladesh…it has been destroyed.”

BNP arranged the program at its Naya Paltan central office, marking the ninth death anniversary of Arafat Rahman Koko, the younger son of BNP founder Ziaur Rahman and party Chairperson Khaleda Zia.

Prayers were offered at the end of the program, seeking eternal peace for Koko’s departed soul.

Earlier in the morning, BNP leaders and activists, led by Standing Committee Member Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, placed wreaths at Koko’s grave and recited Surah Al-Fatiha there.

On January 24, 2015, Koko died following a cardiac arrest aged 45 in Malaysia.

His body was brought back home on January 27 of that year and buried at Banani graveyard.

Source: UNB