Staff Reporter :
The main opposition party, BNP, blamed the Awami League government for destructive climate change and severe heat waves in Bangladesh.
The party leaders alleged this government’s’ subservient policy towards India’ is liable for desertification and severe heatwaves.
“India’s one sided water withdrawal through Farrakka barrage are making Bangladesh desert gradually.
The ongoing severe heatwave is a result of that desertification,” BNP Standing Committee Member Mirza Abbas said while distributing water bottles, saline, and awareness leaflets among the people in the capital organised by the Ziaur Rahman Foundation.
Mirza Abbas also alleged that the ruling party men grabbed all cannels and wetlands in and surrounding Dhaka city, which was also behind the acutely hot weather.
Meanwhile, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi on Thursday accused the Awami League government of pursuing a ‘destructive’ development policy in the name of development, causing environmental degradation across the country.
“The scorching heat in Dhaka has surpassed all the previous records. This was not supposed to happen, as there are many rivers like Turag, Buriganga, and Shitalakshya around Dhaka.
The reality is that encroachers have grabbed these rivers. They have filled up almost every river in the country.
It is possible during the rule of an autocratic regime,” he said.
Expressing concern over the public suffering caused by a severe heatwave sweeping the country, the BNP leader also said the rising temperatures are a result of the current regime’s anti-environmental activities.
Rizvi came up with the comments while distributing bottled water, saline, and juice to pedestrians, day labourers, rickshaw pullers, street vendors, and other working-class of people in front of BNP’s Nayapaltan central office.
The BNP’s Dhaka South City unit organised the programme to alleviate public suffering as temperatures reach unprecedented levels. The unusually high temperatures pose grave risks to public health, especially heat-related illnesses such as heatstroke and dehydration-induced diarrhoea.
Rizvi said the green experts and scientists have repeatedly advised the government not to set up coal-based power plants. “But the anti-mass prime minister has ignored their advice and instead embarked on mega projects in the name of development for indulging in massive corruption.”
He also said the government is setting up a coal-based thermal power plant in Patuakhali’s Kalapara area by ignoring the opinion of environmental experts which poses a serious threat to the biodiversity of the entire Barishal region.
