BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Saturday said that the government has no bargaining capacity to address the problems with India as it always depends on that country to hang on to power.
He said this while addressing a seminar on ‘Deal of withdrawing Feni River water: Bangladesh’s probable damages’ organised by the Association of Engineers, Bangladesh at a hotel in the capital.
Mirza Fakhrul said, “We don’t want to talk against India as we’ve no conflict with that country. The main problem is that now we’ve such a government in power that has no
capacity to talk with India about our problems.” He said, people have to realise that the more the current government will stay in power the more Bangladesh’s interests will be harmed, and its resources will get depleted.
Stating that the Feni River is Bangladesh’s river, not a common one, he said the government is allowing India to withdraw its water, Fakhrul added.
The BNP Secretary said India has long been refusing to give Bangladesh water from the Teesta River while the issue of ensuring the fair share of water of other common rivers also remains unresolved.
“Since assuming power in 2008, they are ignoring people’s interest, endangering the country’s independence and sovereignty, and over all destroying democracy. They have become a puppet government,” he said.
He alleged, “We know what a puppet government is. They uphold others’ interest by ignoring self-interests… when government wants to remain in power by taking help from specific quarters, they have to protect that quarters’ interests.”
Fakhrul said that Bangladeshis are getting killed along the border, but the government says the border killing has dropped substantially. “In fact, we don’t see any fall in border killing.”
