If 'Long March' could have solved crisis, BNP would have organised it: PM

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has questioned the rationale of the opposition’s holding a 'Long March' instead of cooperating with the government to solve the gas and electricity problem.

He said if the 'Long March' could have solved the problem, his party, the BNP, would have held this program.

The head of government, Tarique Rahman, said this in his closing speech at the third session of the thirteenth National Parliament.

On September 5, the Jamaat-e-Islami-led 11-party alliance held a Dhaka-Chattogram 'Long March' with a convoy of vehicles, demanding implementation of the referendum verdict and a solution to the gas and electricity crisis.

Before the Prime Minister’s speech in Parliament on Thursday, opposition leader and Jamaat Amir Shafiqur Rahman demanded a solution to the gas and electricity crisis. He expressed dissatisfaction over the law-and-order situation and the spread of drugs. He also demanded the prevention of corruption.

Noting that he had hoped for cooperation from the opposition in solving the gas and electricity crisis, Tarique Rahman said, “Yet we saw that a huge car Long March was organized. If the gas and electricity problem could be solved by holding a car Long March, then we ourselves would have organized a Long March before anyone else.”

He pointed out that there are questions in people’s minds as to whether, through this Long March, an unnecessary attempt was made to agitate the public and do something else.

Stating that the government is aware of the suffering over gas and electricity, the Prime Minister said, “This was not created in a day. Under fascist rule, not even the slightest effort was made to extract the country’s gas. Many say that gas extraction in the Bay of Bengal was not done so that, in the interests of a particular country, they could take gas from the sea.”

Pointing to the war in the Middle East and a fault at an LNG terminal as reasons for the ongoing energy crisis, Tarique Rahman said that within two weeks of the current government beginning to run the state, the Middle East war started. And alongside that, one of the country’s two LNG terminals broke down. We are trying to solve these problems.

He said, “In the meantime, we have taken many measures. We firmly hope that we will be able to solve the gas and electricity problem.”

Regarding plans for solar power generation, he said, “Until now, we were consumers of electricity from import-dependent sources. But if the plan for solar power generation can be implemented properly, then we will not only be consumers, but rather producers of solar power. We have that capacity.”

Claiming that the BNP inherited the problem of corruption from the fascist ruler, the Prime Minister said the current government is working tirelessly to find ways to solve the problems instead of using them as an excuse.

BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman said that all the promises the BNP made prior to the election, will be fulfilled one by one.