NCP Takes to Karwan Bazar Over Prices and Law and Order, Demands Home and Energy Ministers Resign

The National Citizen Party (NCP) held a leaflet distribution programme at Dhaka's Karwan Bazar on Friday afternoon, protesting rising prices, deteriorating law and order, higher fuel prices and partisan appointments in state institutions. From that programme, held as part of a week-long campaign, the party's top leaders demanded the resignation of the home minister and the energy minister.

The programme was publicity ahead of a planned mass protest. Handing leaflets to shoppers and traders in the market, NCP leaders tried to convey how hard ordinary people are being squeezed and why the party is returning to the streets.

In his speech as chief guest, NCP convener Nahid Islam said law and order is deteriorating while terrorism and drug dealing go unchecked, and at the same time ordinary people and the opposition face repression — with, he alleged, journalists facing the worst of it.

As examples, Nahid Islam said a journalist had been shot in public in Netrokona and 60 vehicles had been robbed in the home minister's own area. Such incidents, he argued, show how deep the failure to maintain law and order runs.

On prices, Nahid Islam said the cost of essentials has risen beyond even the middle class's purchasing power. LPG, he said, cost 1,200 taka even after the election; it is now officially 1,800 taka and is being sold privately for between 2,500 and 3,500 taka. In this overall situation, he said, the public feels utterly helpless.

From that speech came his clear demand: the home minister and the energy minister must resign immediately, taking responsibility for the overall failure. He added that the NCP stands with the people.

Nahid Islam also spoke about the constitution, saying a one-party constitutional amendment committee had been formed to mock the public, and that it should be dissolved and replaced by a constitutional reform council based on the verdict of a referendum. He demanded an end to partisan control of state institutions and genuine accountability, and warned that the proposed cyber law amendment would not be allowed to pass parliament.

At the same programme, NCP senior joint convener Nasiruddin Patwary said prices in Bangladesh are being raised on the pretext of war in world markets or higher gas prices, but in reality syndicates inside the country are what push prices up most.

Patwary said the party has taken to the streets again just as it did before the mass uprising. Many political parties and individuals, he said, have given up, thinking nothing can be done about this government; but he argued the BNP government can be brought to account and prices can be brought under control.

Recalling the past 17 years, he said that when the people of Bangladesh had given up hope of ever removing Sheikh Hasina, they took to the streets and made the impossible possible. His argument was that whenever injustice descends, the people of Bangladesh have never tolerated it and will not do so in future.

He also raised the government's election promises, saying it had pledged there would be no partisan appointments, that everything would be kept within people's purchasing power, and that the state would be built for public welfare — promises he said have not been kept. In his words, people have told them the government is trying to kick them in the stomach.

Patwary also accused political leaders and public representatives of being detached from market reality. Top leaders, MPs, ministers and would-be local election candidates, he said, do not shop at Karwan Bazar or other kitchen markets themselves; their domestic staff do the shopping, so the suffering price rises cause ordinary people does not touch them.

Drawing on his own experience, he said that for those who have risen from villages, come from middle-class families and never engaged in corruption, a single taka carries great value. If essentials are beyond even their purchasing power when they go to market, he asked, what must the condition of the poor be?

Those present at the programme included NCP member secretary Akhtar Hossain, the party's Dhaka North mayoral candidate Asif Mahmud and its Dhaka South mayoral candidate Nasiruddin Patwary, along with central and metropolitan leaders. The leaders said the demand of rich and poor alike is the same: that people can eat their fill, live in health, and find all essentials within their purchasing power.

After the week-long leaflet campaign, the NCP's planned mass protest is the next step in this confrontation. How far the political pressure grows will depend on how the government answers these demands and whether any visible step to control market prices follows.