2-day transport strike in Rangpur ahead of BNP rally

Staff Reporter :
Rangpur district transport owners have suspended the operations of all kinds of vehicles in the district for two days when BNP has a scheduled grand rally on Saturday.
The bus owners association announced that the operations of bus, minibus and microbus in all routes in Rangpur will remain suspended from Friday at 6:00am to Saturday at 6:00pm.  
Such suspension of vehicular movement has been taking place just two days ahead of BNP’s divisional grand rallies.
Earlier the same situations were witnessed in Mymensingh and Khulna rallies.
Even the Barishal division transport owners are more ‘active’ to execute such suspension of bus services there for two days ahead of the BNP rally on November 5.
Rangpur association said they have imposed the suspension to press home their several demands including the ban on three wheelers like Nosimon and Karimon on Rangpur-Kurigram highway.
The BNP leaders said that the suspension of bus services was taken to prevent their party workers and common people from joining the rally.
However, the bus owners association denied the allegation and said that there was no connection between their strike and the BNP rally.
Earlier it was seen that transport strikes caused untold sufferings to people’s movement from one place to another. In the last rally in Khulna, common people suffered the worst as the bus, train and water vessel services were suspended for two days and there was also a tense situation prevailing.
About such suspension, the ruling party said that they did not have any hands in such strikes.
Meanwhile, BNP said that the Rangpur transport strike was nothing new and they would face such obstructions in their remaining grand rallies.
BNP is going to hold the fourth grand rally in Collectorate Eidgah in Rangpur city on Saturday and their preparations are going on in full swing.
The central and local leaders in the divisional districts are holding preparatory meetings to make the rally successful.
They are expecting the spontaneous participation of BNP leaders and workers as well as common people to raise their voices against the government’s ‘misrule’ and protesting the price hike and loadshedding.
Dinajpur BNP in a press conference in its party office on Thursday said that about 60 thousand leaders and workers would participate in the rally.
District BNP General Secretary Bakhtiar Ahmed said, “The ruling party could not obstruct the spontaneous participation of our leaders and workers in the last three rallies. It will be wise if the ruling party abstains from any kind of obstruction to hold the rally peacefully.”
He also sought cooperation of all including the administration to make their rally successful.
“Our leaders and workers will attend the rally with 5000 motorcycles apart from bus, truck, easybike and Nosimon. Around 60 thousand activists will join the rally. We have already held preparatory meetings of 22 units,” he added.