Jamaat's long march worsening fuel crisis: Rashed Khan

Prime Minister’s Political Assistant Rashed Khan has said the fuel crisis and public suffering were worsening as roads were being closed and 100,000 litres of fuel wasted due to Jamaat-e-Islami’s long march.

He made the remarks in a post on his verified Facebook account on Saturday (5 September).

In the post, Rashed Khan wrote that opposition leaders appeared disappointed as the long march announced by Jamaat-e-Islami had failed to attract interest or participation from ordinary people beyond the party's activists.

He said the Jamaat-led alliance had failed to draw the public despite what he described as substantial domestic and foreign investment in the long march. Two parties have already left the alliance.

Rashed Khan also said ordinary people have sufficient understanding of the national and international crises involving electricity, fuel and gas. He described attempts to blame a government that has been in office for six months for problems, crises and mismanagement accumulated over 18–20 years as foolish.

He added that the government was making every effort to implement the signed July National Charter.

Referring to the opposition's six-point demands, Rashed Khan said, “People have no interest in the opposition's six-point demands. The closure of roads and the wastage of 100,000 litres of fuel are further increasing public suffering and the fuel crisis.”

He also pointed out that thousands of passenger and cargo vehicles travel daily on the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway and said those vehicles had been halted because of Jamaat's long march.

“This will cause losses worth hundreds of crores of taka to the state,” he wrote, adding that Jamaat had imposed the long march movement on the people in pursuit of its partisan interests and by relying on what he described as falsehood and deception.